USC opens new neuroimaging institute


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The USC Stevens Hall for Neuroimaging, a new neurological research building that contains the world’s largest repository of brain data, opened at the Health Sciences Campus Thursday afternoon. The facility was designed by Arthur Toga, a professor of ophthalmology and the director of the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, and was made possible through a donation from USC Trustees Mark and Mary Stevens.

The ceremony began with a ribbon-cutting by President C. L. Max Nikias, who then invited guests to tour the new building. Nikias also delivered a speech regarding the impact he believes this building will make on research and innovation in the field of neuroscience.

“We are on the verge of ushering in a golden age of medicine and biology,” Nikias said. “Neuroscience and brain sciences in particular hold a unique place for us within medical science because within the modest space of the human brain rests a vast and infinitely complex universe of its very own.”

Stevens Hall currently houses the world’s largest bank of information about the brain, with 2,867 terabytes of data from every continent other than Antarctica. In the coming year, the institute will receive the world’s only Siemens 7T magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, machine to conduct detailed and accurate brain scans.

The new building also houses the Data Immersive Visualization Environment presentation theater, where researchers can project sets of data and highly magnified images on a 12-by-15-foot screen in ultra high definition. These high-tech features, Mark Stevens said, will allow the institute to conduct further research into the causes of several illnesses.

“The dream for all of us is … via the research that will go on here in this new facility, to find solutions to a whole range of diseases that ravage all of our families,” Stevens said.

Nikias ended his speech by thanking the Stevens family for their contribution once more.

“Mark and Mary have earned the Trojan Family’s enduring respect and gratitude,” Nikias said. “For their commitment to this university and its Trojan Family, for your compassion for those who suffer, for your commitment to unleashing the best within the human mind and spirit, we thank them once again.”