On the 05/11/2015 CISTIB hosted and ran a meeting of the Diffusion MRI UK Group (www.diffusion-mri.org.uk). Alongside this in the morning the scientific committee of the new research project OCEAN (www.ocean-mri.org) which is being led by CISTIB met with many of the attendees took part in the Diffusion MRI UK meeting in the afternoon.

This meeting drew together researchers from the field of Diffusion MRI this included academics and PhD students from different institutes. The day included poster and talks given by both senior academics and junior researchers working on the characterisation brain microstructure by means of diffusion MRI. The event was held in the Graduate Teaching Building of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Sheffield (www.sheffield.ac.uk/faculty/engineering).

Diffusion MRI is a technique that allows to study the movement of water molecules in human tissue, both in vivo and non-invasively. This is useful for depicting tissue integrity and detecting early changes that may consequently lead to neurodegenerative pathologies such as Alzheimer’s. The meeting had a particular focus on these topics and their application. This has a great potential to investigate the interrogation of tissue improving our understanding of how neurodegenerative diseases and changes in tissue structure affect the body.

Presenters included Marc Jones (KCL), Fenglei Zhou (Manchester University), Jonathan Clayden (University College London), Jacques-Donald Tournier (KCL), and Andrada Ianus (UCL). The event had approximately 50 participants either presenting posters or attending the event. The day was led by Leandro Beltrachini (CISTIB, The University of Sheffield).

The event was a success, the excellent attendance and the quality of the posters and the presentations were engaging and explored the facets of Diffusion MRI. The meeting allowed the attendees to exchange of ideas and the fostering of future collaborations. Please, get in touch if you would like to know more.