Introduction to Appendices

MISSION

The Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Brain Imaging (CCBBI) stands as an interdisciplinary hub within The Ohio State University's College of Arts and Sciences. Situated in the Department of Psychology, CCBBI is a dedicated research facility with a primary focus on human cognitive, clinical, developmental, and social neuroscience. Committed to research, teaching, and outreach, CCBBI prioritizes values of diversity, inclusivity, and equity in all its endeavors.

Established in 2011, CCBBI was conceived with the mission to support faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences in their structural and functional MRI research. Collaboration with colleagues from other colleges was also welcomed, provided it aligned with CCBBI's mission. 

ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURE AND STAFF

The CCBBI is directed by Dr. Ruchika Prakash, Distinguished Professor in the College of Arts & Sciences at Ohio State. Administrative staff at the center also includes:

• Dr. Xiangrui Li, Assistant Director
• Dr. Adam Gorka, Research Assistant Professor
• Elizabeth Sponseller, MRI Technologist
• Dr. Uyen Tram, Center Manager
• James Teng, Graduate Research Assistant
• Dr. Claudiu Schirda, MR Physicist Consultant 

The administrative team encompasses the CCBBI Director and the following committees: Steering Committee; Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee; Outreach and Talk Series Committee; and the Technical Committee. The Director and all committee members are OSU faculty, staff, and students who contribute part of their effort to the Center. 

Steering Committee:This committee is charged with setting and monitoring policy, including the guidelines for day-to-day operation. The committee is also charged with evaluating the quality and feasibility of proposed studies and allocating scanner time. The committee meets once a month. The committee aims to reach decisions via unanimous consensus. When no consensus can be reached, the decision will be made by a simple majority. 

• Dr. Ruchika Prakash (Chair), CCBBI Director, College of Arts & Sciences
• Dr. Xiangrui Li, Assistant Director, College of Arts & Sciences
• Dr. Jay Fournier, Associate Professor, College of Medicine
• Dr. Jasmeet Hayes, Associate Professor, College of Arts & Sciences
• Dr. Zeynep Saygin, Associate Professor, College of Arts & Sciences

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee: This committee is charged with maintaining the Center's diversity and equity initiatives in addition to fostering better relationships with historically underrepresented communities. The committee meets once a month. 

• Dr. Jay Fournier (Co-Chair), Associate Professor, College of Medicine
• Dr. Kristen Hoskinson (Co-Chair), Research Assistant Professor, College of Medicine
• Dr. Jessica Turner, Research Professor, College of Medicine
• Dr. Adam Gorka, CCBBI Research Assistant Professor, College of Arts & Sciences
• Dr. Madhura Phansikar, Postdoctoral Researcher
• Dr. Erika Pugh, CCBBI Postdoctoral Researcher
• Tyreek Jones, CCBBI Graduate Student

Outreach and Talk Series Committee: This committee is charged with evaluating and selecting speakers for CCBBI Users' Meetings and other events throughout the year. Additionally, the committee is tasked with exploring new ways to interact and liaise with the broader community for educational purposes. The committee will meet once a month. 

• Dr. Jasmeet Hayes (Chair), Associate Professor, College of Arts & Sciences
• Dr. Brandon Turner, Professor, College of Arts & Sciences
• Dr. Dylan Wagner, Associate Professor, College of Arts & Sciences
• Dr. Nikki Puccetti, CCBBI Postdoctoral Researcher
• Dr. Uyen Tram, CCBBI Manager
• Annie Lee, CCBBI Graduate Student  
• Matt Schroeder, CCBBI Graduate Student

Technical Committee:This committee is charged with the monitoring of equipment-related issues, including maintenance and operation of the magnet. The committee will meet once a month. Achieving maximum safety for users, subjects, and staff is the main goal of the committee’s activities.

• Dr. Zeynep Saygin (Chair), Associate Professor, College of Arts & Sciences
• Dr. Julie Golomb, Professor, College of Arts & Sciences
• Dr. Ivy Tso, Associate Professor, College of Medicine
• Dr. Xiangrui Li, CCBBI Assistant Director, College of Arts & Sciences
• Zitong Lu, CCBBI Graduate Student
• James Teng, CCBBI Graduate Student

In addition to the meetings of standing committees, the Center will schedule meetings for investigators and staff that are aimed at presenting ongoing work. The Center also anticipates holding public meetings, open to scientific and lay communities, aimed at fulfilling the Center’s wider educational mission.

CCBBI MEMBERSHIP

CCBBI is an interdisciplinary center that values collaborations with other departments, centers, and colleges at Ohio State. We warmly welcome faculty, students, and staff members from all academic domains to apply for the use of our extensive services and resources. To become a part of CCBBI, please complete the CCBBI Fellow Application, CCBBI Affiliate Application, or CCBBI Trainee Application.

CCBBI Fellow status may be granted to all tenure-track faculty members within the College of Arts & Sciences at The Ohio State University whose tenure initiating unit (TIU) is in this college and who maintain an active neuroimaging lab. An active neuroimaging lab is defined in one of three ways: 1) the faculty member is a core member of the cognitive neuroscience program in the Department of Psychology, 2) holds an externally funded grant where they serve as the Principal Investigator (PI) or Co-PI utilizing CCBBI scanner resources, or 3) has authored at least two papers in the last year as a senior author, utilizing MRI. 

Tenure-track members with a TIU outside the College of Arts & Sciences are eligible for CCBBI Fellow status if they serve as Chair of one of the CCBBI committees and are extensively engaged in service activities at the Center. In such instances, the CCBBI Fellow status remains valid for a four-year period, contingent upon the faculty member's ongoing participation in center activities.

Tenure-track faculty members at The Ohio State University who do not meet the criteria of a CCBBI Fellow but are interested in utilizing the services of CCBBI are eligible to apply for CCBBI Affiliate Status.

All postdoctoral scholars, research associates, graduate students, and undergraduate students at Ohio State with an interest in studying and utilizing neuroimaging techniques are eligible to apply for CCBBI Trainee Status. 

For more details on this, please see Appendix I. 

REGULATIONS

The safety of visitors and Center staff is of paramount importance. It takes precedence over any research considerations and over the convenience of any investigator. For this reason, the Center has prepared a manual of safety procedures (see Appendix II) to which adherence is required. The Technical Committee ensures compliance with these procedures, updates the manual as needed and reviews it annually. All personnel working at the Center must participate in safety training at least once a year.

The Center is equipped to investigate human subjects, spanning from infancy to older adults, including patients with stable conditions compatible with MR imaging, as part of a research protocol. The Center does not currently have a provision for the use of contrast materials or for sedation. None of the studies to be conducted at the Center are to have a clinical purpose, and there is no medical or radiological staff on the premises. In recognition of the fact that, on occasion, incidental findings may need to be investigated medically, and in a best-faith effort to inform research subjects of that possibility, the policy of CCBBI is to have all structural scans of normal research subjects reviewed by a neuroradiologist.

Participant Identification

Participants to be scanned at CCBBI are given a code number followed by the initials of the investigator. This is the “name” to be entered during patient registration on the MR console. Neither the participant’s actual name nor any other identifying information is to be entered in the MR computer file, to make certain that subject privacy can be fully observed. Individual investigators are responsible for keeping records in order to identify the raw data collected at the Center.

Participant Procedures

Each investigator is responsible for obtaining IRB approval for their study and for filing the approval document with the Center’s Manager. Investigators are also responsible for explaining informed consent procedures to every subject and for having every subject sign the informed consent form. No subject can be scanned without a signed informed consent form. The code number assigned to the study will be added to the form.

A MR safety screening will also be performed by the Center staff and will be signed by the participant and by the MR personnel performing the screening. The screening results may preclude a subject from participating in a study. For subjects with a history of cerebro-vascular disease, neurosurgical procedures, or accidents in which metallic objects or particles might have been lodged inside soft brain or eye tissue, it is necessary to submit a medical report, signed by a physician, stating that it is safe for the subject to undergo an MRI. This report needs to be filed together with the signed IRB and screening questionnaire.

Each investigator is responsible for bringing along one MRI User or MRI operator (see Safety Manual for definition) to help perform the actual study for studies conducted during working hours. Two MRI users are required for studies conducted during off hours. CCBBI also implements a certification process for users (refer to Appendix III). Approval in writing from the CCBBI Director is required for users interested in operating the MR scanner.

Fee Structure

The MRI Technologist will help perform scans conducted in the Center without extra charge.

Funded research with OSU accounts:  A fee of $550.00 per hour is charged for scans on funded research for studies performed between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm Monday through Friday. 

Funded research with non-OSU accounts:  An overhead fee (currently 52.5%) will be added to OSU rates for qualified external researchers holding a funded protocol.

Award Allocation to CCBBI During Submission of External Proposals: CCBBI Fellows and Affiliates will be asked to include CCBBI in the ePA005 for proportional award allocation, but no expenditure allocation will be needed for CCBBI Fellows or Affiliates 

Research Proposals

All research proposals are to be submitted to the Steering Committee for review. 

Pilot studies:  Pilot studies are meant to produce preliminary results to facilitate the submission of grant requests, and they are not meant to produce, by themselves, publishable results. A maximum of 10 free pilot study hours per investigator per year may be granted after submission and approval of a proposal to the Steering Committee.

Each pilot proposal will be reviewed by two referees from within or outside the committee as appropriate. Requests for pilot studies are to be accompanied by a brief description of the proposed study in which the hypothesis is clearly stated along with a rationale, description of the subjects to be scanned, the number of subjects, and the specification of the protocol to be used. There should also be a brief statement regarding the type of analysis to be performed and a mention of the source(s) from which the investigator plans to seek funding once the pilot studies have been completed. The proposal must also include the names of any personnel involved in obtaining MR data and their qualification to run the study. Proposals should be a maximum of 3 to 4 pages (double spaced) in length.

Approval of a proposal depends on its feasibility, merit, the availability of time on the magnet as assessed by the Committee, and on securing IRB approval by the responsible investigator (see Appendix IV). Please note that due to the heavy demand on scanner availability, the CCBBI Steering Committee has decided to continue funding the pilot program. However, hours for pilot studies will only be made available the preceding Friday.

Funded studies: Requests for funded studies also require a brief proposal, similar to the one outlined above, to assist the Committee in deciding if the Center is equipped to perform the proposed studies (see Appendix V).

Before submitting an external grant request involving MRI scans, investigators are urged to contact the Director or Assistant Director and make certain that the Center is prepared to commit the resources necessary for the particular study. The Center will not be required to honor scanning requests for funded studies unless a prior agreement has been reached between the investigator and the Director or Assistant Director of the Center.

Scheduling of Studies

Once a study is approved by the committee, the scheduling of the date and time for each study is accomplished on-line by the investigators (Appendix VI).  When scheduling Pilot scans, the word “PILOT” must be on the CCBBI scheduling calendar or it will be billed as a Funded study.

All scheduling is coordinated by the MRI Technologist, Elizabeth Sponseller. To cancel a reservation or amend an erroneously entered time slot, please contact the Technologist for assistance with the schedule.