- Dr Caroline Witton and colleagues have received £800,000 from the Medical Research Council towards new magnetoencephalography (MEG) equipment
- The joint research team with Birmingham Children’s Hospital will use the kit to improve outcomes for children with brain damage or after brain surgery
- The new scanner will be supplied by French company MAG4Health.
Aston University’s Institute of Health of Neurodevelopment (IHN) and Birmingham Children’s Hospital are to get a new, child-friendly magnetoencephalography (MEG) brain scanner.
A nine-strong clinical and research team led by Dr Caroline Witton, reader in psychology, was awarded an £800,000 grant from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Capital Funding for World Class Labs scheme. This has been supplemented by Aston University, giving a total budget of £2.5m to purchase the MEG scanner from French company MAG4Health and construct a new, magnetically shielded laboratory in the IHN building to house it.
The facility will be staffed and used by a joint team from IHN and Birmingham Children’s Hospital Neurophysiology Department, as part of a long-running partnership. It is expected to open in 2025. IHN is already registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) as a day hospital for children, making it an ideal host.
MEG is a brain imaging technology which measures tiny magnetic fields in the brain, which are caused by electrical activity. This allows researchers to map brain activity, useful for investigating brain function and for clinical applications.
Aston University has pioneered MEG technology for more than 30 years, and together with Birmingham Children’s Hospital, has implemented the clinical use of MEG for planning brain surgery for children with epilepsy and brain tumours.
Conventional MEG scanners are fixed machines, into which the patient is asked to place their head and remain very still. This can be unpleasant or difficult for children.
MAG4Health’s optically pumped magnetometer (OPM) MEG machine is different. The scanner uses an adjustable cap containing new sensors developed by the company which is placed on the patient’s head. This is more convenient and comfortable especially for children, as it allows some degree of movement.
The OPM MEG can pinpoint and track the brain’s neuronal activity in real time to a precision that is not possible with other imaging technologies like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). OPM MEG technology has huge potential to improve the understanding and care of neuronal disorders. Research for the European Brain Council estimates that brain disorders cost €798bn annually in Europe alone.
IHN and Birmingham Children’s Hospital have a research programme in place for the OPM MEG, which is focused on improving outcomes for children with a wide range of brain disorders including traumatic brain injury. This will build on their existing work using MEG to help neurosurgeons plan brain surgery for children with epilepsy and brain tumours and understand what factors can determine better outcomes in these conditions. This can in future help rehabilitation specialists to carefully target their treatments.
Currently, MEG scanners are operated by specially trained technicians. However, the teams at Aston University and Birmingham Children’s Hospital will work with MAG4Health to develop the clinical practices and software that will allow data analysis to take place in hospitals, rather than it being limited to universities. This will mean that in future many more patients will be able to benefit from MEG.
The team will also help MAG4Health to research and develop new clinical uses for the OPM MEG, including the diagnosis of concussion.
Dr Witton said:
“I am incredibly excited about the opportunities we have been given with this funding. OPM-MEG is the next frontier in our field, and I genuinely think that, because of our unique partnership with BCH, we have the chance to make a real difference to how MEG is used clinically.”
Matthieu Le Prado, CEO of MAG4Health, said:
“We are very excited to be collaborating with Dr Witton's team. OPM-MEG should make it possible to develop new ways of diagnosing and prognosing neuronal diseases. The conformable headset will enable children to benefit from MEG examinations of the same quality as adults and, the room temperature operation of the sensors will allow continuous operations.”
Peter Bill, lead healthcare scientist from Birmingham Children’s Hospital, said:
“This represents a fantastic opportunity to grow and develop our clinical workforce and to deliver a unique service for our patients and their families. This is building on a foundation of advancing practice in the healthcare sciences that has seen Aston University and our profession develop a successful MSc programme over a decade ago. I see this as an exciting example of how multidisciplinary and multiprofessional collaboration can improve patient care through innovation.”
- Notes to editors
This work was supported by the Medical Research Council (grant number MC_PC_ MR/Y002717/1).
About Aston University
For over a century, Aston University’s enduring purpose has been to make our world a better place through education, research and innovation, by enabling our students to succeed in work and life, and by supporting our communities to thrive economically, socially and culturally.
Aston University’s history has been intertwined with the history of Birmingham, a remarkable city that once was the heartland of the Industrial Revolution and the manufacturing powerhouse of the world.
Born out of the First Industrial Revolution, Aston University has a proud and distinct heritage dating back to our formation as the School of Metallurgy in 1875, the first UK College of Technology in 1951, gaining university status by Royal Charter in 1966, and becoming the Guardian University of the Year in 2020.
Building on our outstanding past, we are now defining our place and role in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (and beyond) within a rapidly changing world.
For media inquiries in relation to this release, contact Helen Tunnicliffe, Press and Communications Manager, on (+44) 7827 090240 or email: h.tunnicliffe@aston.ac.uk.
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About UKRI Medical Research Council
The UKRI Medical Research Council (MRC) is at the forefront of scientific discovery to improve human health. Founded in 1913 to tackle tuberculosis, the MRC now invests taxpayers’ money in some of the best medical research in the world across every area of health. Thirty-three MRC-funded researchers have won Nobel prizes in a wide range of disciplines, and MRC scientists have been behind such diverse discoveries as vitamins, the structure of DNA and the link between smoking and cancer, as well as achievements such as pioneering the use of randomised controlled trials, the invention of MRI scanning, and the development of a group of antibodies used in the making of some of the most successful drugs ever developed. Today, MRC-funded scientists tackle some of the greatest health problems facing humanity in the 21st century, from the rising tide of chronic diseases associated with ageing to the threats posed by rapidly mutating micro-organisms.