The BAOBAB UMR is the methodological backbone of the NeuroSpin large-scale imaging facility, supporting the R&D necessary for cutting-edge MRI technology. Physicists and computer scientists at BAOBAB develop solutions that fully leverage the capabilities of the available instruments—most notably, the jewel of the NeuroSpin platform: the ISEULT MRI scanner, featuring a world-record 11.7T magnet designed by CEA physicists who also oversee magnet development at CERN.
Other instruments at NeuroSpin serve multiple purposes for BAOBAB teams, from identifying the technical challenges of increasing magnetic field strength to creating innovative solutions to overcome them. BAOBAB researchers also use these tools to develop novel biomarkers for better understanding both normal and pathological brain function.
BAOBAB also plays a major role in the national CATI platform, a distributed neuroimaging infrastructure across France that standardizes image acquisition protocols for clinical research using around a hundred conventional MRI scanners. Founded in 2010 by J.-F. Mangin as part of the French Alzheimer Plan, CATI became a permanent service unit in 2022 (US52-UAR2031), operating under the umbrella of CEA, INSERM, CNRS, AP-HP, Sorbonne University, and the Paris Brain Institute (ICM).
This dual involvement significantly shapes BAOBAB’s research priorities, allowing the unit to combine the two major strategies in neuroscience imaging: deep phenotyping, enabled by exceptional instruments like those at NeuroSpin, and broad phenotyping, driven by large-scale cohorts and recent advances in artificial intelligence for data analysis.
Now, let’s discover in depth the activities of the different BAOBAB teams...
Laboratory, directed by Sébastien Mériaux, develops innovative methodologies for understanding the biophysics of brain mechanisms such as metabolism, neuronal activity and molecules transport, both in normal and pathological conditions using ultra-high and extreme field MRI and MRS, ultrasounds, and histology, following a translational strategy from animals to humans.
Laboratory, directed by Edouard Duchesnay, develops new computer vision systems dedicated to the modeling of the inter-subject variability of complex brain phenotypes, is the algorithmic forefront of the exploitation of high field MRI, designs dedicated artificial intelligence methods and software environments to exploit brain phenotypes in a variety of contexts (biomarker research, genetics, cognitive neuroscience, etc).
Laboratory, directed by Alexandre Vignaud, develops ultra-high and extreme fields MRI methods and hardware to map the human and non-human primate brains at unprecedented resolutions.