Our main emphasis is on quantification of cerebral asymmetry and functional laterality in order to investigate differences associated with schizophrenia and psychotic symptoms. We are particularly interested in studying age of onset effects and sex differences in asymmetry and laterality as part of the quest for a unifying neurodevelopmental theory of schizophrenia.

We have strong collaborative links with Professor Neil Roberts and colleagues at the Magnetic Resonance and Image Analysis Research Centre (MARIARC) at the University of Liverpool, and with Professor Lynn DeLisi at the Department of Psychiatry, New York University. (Click here for a more theoretical description of the neuroimaging/psychology research undertaken at POWIC.)

Hardware and software

The image analysis lab currently contains two Sun Ultra 10 unix workstations, one Sun Blade 1000 unix workstation, two Linux PCs, one G4 Mac and 4 Windows PCs.

Image analysis tools include FSL, SPM99, mri3dX, NRIA, NIH Image, MRIcro, INRIA demons (Epidaure Project, INRIA, Sophia Antipolis, Nice), KUL hemisphere extraction (Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, Belgium) as well as in-house tools Easymeasure, and LowD (MARIARC, University of Liverpool, UK).

Oxford Centre for Clinical Magnetic Resonance Research (OCMR)

The Oxford Centre for Clinical Magnetic Resonance Research (OCMR) at the John Radcliffe hospital has a 1.5T Siemens Sonata MRI scanner. Involvement with this facility has opened up new opportunities for our research group, including improved structural scanning, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and functional imaging (fMRI).

Click here to view the OCMR scanner calendar.