Ian Shih
shihyyi.bsky.social
Ian Shih
@shihyyi.bsky.social
Brain imager, Professor and Vice Chair for Research at UNC Neurology; Associate Director UNC Biomedical Research Imaging Center; Director, UNC Center for Animal MRI (http://camri.org/)
On Thursday (May 15) afternoon at 15:33 in the preclinical brain imaging oral session, Liming Hsu will present a chemogenetic fMRI study building on our prior work (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...), studying how PVT modulates locus coeruleus-induced MD-PrL connectivity and behavior.
May 9, 2025 at 10:31 AM
On Wednesday (May 14) afternoon at 15:45 in the multimodal fMRI oral session, Liming Hsu will cover a recently published story about the specificity of “optogenetic terminal stimulation”: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40090667/
May 9, 2025 at 10:31 AM
On Wednesday (May 14) afternoon at 13:30 in the preclinical fMRI e-poster session, Weiting Zhang will discuss our initial attempts to resolve what causes synchronous resting-state connectivity in the striatum between two hemispheres.
May 9, 2025 at 10:31 AM
On Monday (May 12) afternoon at 17:12 in the fMRI acquisition/contrast oral session, Sheng Song will give an overview of SORDINO and its use in awake behaving mice.
May 9, 2025 at 10:31 AM
On Monday (May 12) afternoon at 16:48 in the Neurofluid oral session, Sungho Lee will present the use of SORDINO on mapping glymphatic dynamics and choroid plexus efflux.
May 9, 2025 at 10:31 AM
Also on Monday (May 12) morning at 8:15 in the multimodal e-poster session, Liming Hsu will showcase the use of miniscope calcium imaging during SORDINO fMRI and how it may help examine the clusters of cells in PrL linking to distinct large-scale networks.
May 9, 2025 at 10:31 AM
On Monday (May 12) morning at 8:15 in the multimodal e-poster session, Tatiana Shnitko will discuss the use of fMRI, electrophysiology, and electrochemistry to study dopaminergic modulation of connectivity dynamics and stress-driven repetitive behaviors.
May 9, 2025 at 10:31 AM
On Monday (May 12) morning at 8:15 in the fMRI acquisition e-poster session, Sam Booth will demonstrate the use of PETALUTE for fMRI (collab with @uzayemir.bsky.social and Steve Sawiak), featuring a golden angle scheme to achieve flexible spatiotemporal resolution with multi-echo capability!
May 9, 2025 at 10:31 AM
Come meet us during ISMRM!

On Saturday (May 10) at the Bruker event and Monday (May 12) at 14:01 in the fMRI power pitch session, Harry Chao will talk about his work mapping inter-brain functional connectivity in socially interacting mice using SORDINO.
May 9, 2025 at 10:31 AM
12/ SORDINO for imaging glymphatic dynamics💧: Using Gd contrast, SORDINO enables brain-wide tracking of CSF influx without susceptibility artifacts. Its silent acquisition paves the way for studying glymphatic function in awake and sleeping mice – providing insights into brain waste clearance!
March 17, 2025 at 4:17 PM
11/ SORDINO for cross-brain coupling during social behavior 🐭🐭: We developed a dual-mouse hyperscanning platform, enabling simultaneous fMRI of two interacting mice. SORDINO reveals synchronized inter-brain activity in DMN & SN, uncovering neural dynamics of social interactions!
March 17, 2025 at 4:17 PM
10/ SORDINO maps skilled motor actions in mice🤏: We designed a food pellet delivery system and trained mice to reach and grasp during fMRI. SORDINO captures brain-wide motor sequence activity, initiated and executed by the subjects – pushing the frontiers of naturalistic fMRI!
March 17, 2025 at 4:14 PM
9/ SORDINO for resting-state fMRI in awake mice🐭: Using a custom headplate coil, we mapped functional connectivity without restraining body or limbs, showing robust triple-network connectivity and great alignment with Allen Mouse Brain Atlas structural connectivity.
March 17, 2025 at 4:14 PM
8/ SORDINO offers superior specificity 🎯: Unlike BOLD-fMRI, SORDINO is sensitive to tissue oxygen and CBV changes rather than hemoglobin oxygenation. This can avoid draining vein bias and result in improved accuracy in detecting neuronal activity.
March 17, 2025 at 4:13 PM
7/ SORDINO delivers robust sensitivity💪: Using a standard sensory stimulation task and resting-state acquisition in rats, we found: robust CNR vs. GRE-EPI, making SORDINO an efficient technique for functional brain mapping!
March 17, 2025 at 4:13 PM
6/ SORDINO minimizes artifacts👻: Drastically reduced ghosting, distortion, susceptibility & motion artifacts. Unlike EPI, SORDINO preserves signal integrity in 🧲challenging regions and maintains signal stability during passive limb movement.
March 17, 2025 at 4:11 PM
5/ SORDINO enables simultaneous miniscope calcium imaging🔬: SORDINO’s minimal interference allows for real-time calcium imaging at cellular resolution using a head-mounted miniscope in MRI. This provides new possibilities for multimodal neuroimaging across spatiotemporal scales.
March 17, 2025 at 4:10 PM
4/ SORDINO minimizes electromagnetic interference⚡: By eliminating transient gradient switching, it drastically reduces MRI-induced artifacts in concurrent electrophysiology recordings, allowing clean, real-time spike detection or measurement of neurochemical signals.
March 17, 2025 at 4:08 PM
3/ SORDINO is silent🔕: Unlike conventional fMRI, SORDINO eliminates gradient polarity switching, drastically reducing acoustic noise and stress in awake rodent subjects. This translates to less habituation time and reduced stress hormone levels for more naturalistic fMRI studies.
March 17, 2025 at 4:02 PM
2/ We named SORDINO (Steady-state On-the-Ramp Detection of INduction-decay with Oversampling) after the 🎶musical term for muting. It keeps gradient amplitudes constant while smoothly changing direction, eliminating acoustic noise & artifacts while maximizing sensitivity.
March 17, 2025 at 3:51 PM
1/ Six years in the making! Our preprint on SORDINO fMRI is out. We're sharing the raw data and sequence to facilitate brain-wide mapping in awake, behaving rodents. If this could be useful to your colleagues and friends, please help spread the word!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
March 17, 2025 at 3:46 PM