Hello MRRC users,
I am reaching out with several reminders and updates.
Masking Update
UPMC monitoring has identified substantial levels of respiratory illness due to several viruses. Starting February 12, masks are required to be worn by patients, visitors, support persons, and staff in patient care areas of UPMC Presbyterian. The MRRC is not classified as a patient care area, so masks will not be required in our facility as part of this new policy. However, please consider screening your participants for respiratory illness to ensure we are minimizing risk of illness to other users, staff, and participants.
Staffing Requirement
The MRRC requires one study team member (usually a research assistant or research coordinator) to stay at the MRRC for the duration of the scanning session. While scanning, the study team member should remain in the control room with the MRRC technologist. The study team member is primarily responsible for interacting with the participant over the intercom (e.g., to provide task instructions for fMRI studies). The study team member is also an important safety resource because they can assist the technologist in the event of an emergency.
Control Room Equipment
- Data from the “E-Prime" task PCs in the control rooms should be backed up routinely by the study team. We recommend you take any new E-Prime data with you at the conclusion of every scanning session. The MRRC also recommends that you keep a backup of your experiment files from the control room PCs (i.e., Eprime, Matlab, Psycopy tasks and related files) on the corresponding practice room PC. If a control room or practice room PC were to fail, you would have a backup of your tasks available immediately.
- Please leave the control rooms in the state you find them. If you unplug any cables, please note the spot where they belong and be sure to plug them back in when you leave. Cables that remain unplugged should be coiled and placed neatly where they belong.
MR Safety
Please be mindful of all metal you bring into the MRRC. Any unnecessary metal items should be left in lab spaces or, at minimum, kept inside bags when not being actively used. All metallic and MR-Unsafe objects should be cleared from your person while you are in the control room (that way, should you need to enter the scanner for any reason you won’t forget something metallic on your person). Please do not bring any metallic silverware into the control rooms.
Hospital Room B-812 Linen
For anyone using the hospital-style room B-812, please strip the linen and wipe down beds/pillows after every use. There is a linen hamper at the base of the left bed. Clean sheets are kept in the cabinet.
Please continue citing the MRRC
Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs) are persistent and unique identifiers for research resources such as core facilities, organisms, tools, etc. More information can be found on this website: https://www.rrids.org/. The MRRC acquired RRID:SCR_025215 in spring 2024 and we are very happy to see users using this RRID in publications. Please continue to use this RRID to cite the center in all publications describing work that uses data collected at the MRRC. Be sure to check your journal’s style guide and author recommendations for proper use of RRIDs. Example in-text citation:
“The imaging session was conducted at the University of Pittsburgh’s Magnetic Resonance Research Center (RRID:SCR_025215).“
As always, please feel free to reply to me only at aer126@pitt.edu if you have any clarifying questions.
Best,
Andrew