Medical College of Wisconsin Center for Imaging Research Services
Services Offered
The CIR is structured to enable the use of MRI in a broad range of research studies. Support is available from staff and faculty level physicists on a fee-for-service model. This support can be used to protocol experiments, develop novel image acquisitions, assist in image analysis and data storage. For pre-clinical work, an animal “drop-off” service is available to aid in the preparation and handling of small animals in imaging studies. With these services, the goal of the CIR is to lower the “barrier to entry” for imaging studies. Ultimately, researchers with questions that can be answered with MRI can use the services of the CIR to tailor an imaging experiment and understand its outcome.
Service Center Fees
CIR faculty and staff are available to provide physicist support and protocol design. As a part of this service, the physicist will provide imaging expertise, facilitate project design and/ or develop imaging protocol. In addition, after MRI acquisition, MR images must be preprocessed to prepare them for analysis. The CIR also offers an imaging preprocessing and data analysis service. To utilize the CIR research imaging facilities and any of these services, first review our Scanner Usage Policy.
The hourly fees for these services can be utilized at $150 for CIR faculty physics support and $75 for CIR technical staff services. The CIR Pilot Award program which offers funding, can be used to offset these costs.
Scanner services can be scheduled through iLab.
See Scanner Appointment, Rates and Fees
| Rates are per hour |
Premier 3T CIR |
9.4T |
| WITH Operator |
$400.00 $500.00 effective 7/1/2022* |
$200.00 |
| Peak w/o Operator M-F 8 a.m.-5 p.m. |
N/A | $100.00 |
| Off-peak w/o Operator M-F 5 p.m.-8 a.m. Weekends |
N/A | $25.00 |
| Commercial & Non-Approved Academic |
$600.00 | $300.00 |
| Animal Drop Off Service M-F 8 a.m.-5 p.m. All Customers |
N/A | $275.00 |
*Researchers should budget in their grants for annual increase of rates of up to 5% annually, with actual rates starting 7/1 of a given year, posted by 4/1 of that year.
Human Scans are billed on the ¼ hour with 30 minute minimum.
Animal Scans are billed on the ½ hour with 60 minute minimum.
Cancellation Fees: Due to low availability of open time on our scanners, a 25% cancellation fee will be charged for appointments cancelled less than 2 weeks in advance. This fee will be waived if another researcher uses the time, or the time becomes otherwise unavailable. All studies which recruit from a healthy population are subject to this fee.
System Modification Policy
- Undocumented modification of the MR system (i.e., shell scripts, installing prototypes) is prohibited.
- PIs may provide written request to the CIR Faculty Technical Council (which meets weekly) for approval of MRI system modification processes.
- Permission is only required at the onset of a given project (i.e., a pulse sequence or reconstruction development project).
- Permission is not required for every new modification unless it represents a substantial deviation in system or equipment use from the original proposal.
- Approval for a system modification must receive a majority vote of the CIR Faculty Technical Council and responses will be provided in writing.
- Nonapproved modifications will be immediately deleted, with a $1,000 administrative fee charged to the individual responsible for such modification.
- Concerns regarding system modifications decisions made by the CIR Faculty Technical Council can be expressed in writing by CIR members to Dr. Vince Mathews, chair of Radiology, who provides oversight of the CIR.
Billing Policy
- All utilized time is scheduled and billed through the iLab software.
- All scheduling is on a first-come, first-serve basis, though CIR administration reserves the right to alter the schedule.
- All usage time on the scanners will be chargeable according to the CIR's iLab software.
- Audits of scanner control access will be used to verify users are properly charged.
- Use of a scanner without a chargeable account will be billed to the PI with an additional $25 per hour administrative fee.