The The Laboratory for MRI of Human Brain Microstructure and Connectivity led by Dr. Jennifer McNab is part of the Radiological Sciences Laboratory division of the Department of Radiology in the School of Medicine at Stanford University. We are based at the Richard M. Lucas Center for Imaging.

Our mission is to develop magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques that probe human brain tissue microstructure. This requires new MRI contrast mechanisms, strategic encoding and reconstruction schemes, physiological monitoring, brain tissue modeling and validation. Applications of these methods include neuronavigation, neurosurgical planning and the development of improved biomarkers for brain development, degeneration, disease and injury. 

Our current research is focused on the development of MRI pulse sequences and analysis strategies for:

  • Multi-dimensional Diffusion Encoding
  • Mapping Cortical Fiber Patterns
  • Integration of MRI and Advanced Histology
  • Mixed-Reality Neuronavigation for Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
  • Diffusion Tractography for Neurosurgical Targeting

More details about our research >>

Lab News

11/04/2025: Shailja is awarded a Postdoctoral Scholar Award from the Wu Tsai Neuroscience Institute at Stanford. CONGRATULATIONS! 

10/03/2025: Thank you Beatrix, RSL Retreat Committee member, for succesful retreat this year!

09/25/2025: Congrats to Shailja – MICCAI Doctoral Consortium "Overall Winner Award"on her thesis, "Reeb Graphs for Topological Connectomdics"!

09/22/2025: Welcome Master's student in BioE, Karolina Hasiec, who will have a joint RAship with Profs. McNab and Knowles. 

05/16/2025: Congratulations to Shailja on being awarded first place by the  ISMRM White Matter Study Group for her ISMRM poster presentation entitled: “Can Tractography Predict Electrophysicological Connectivity”. 

04/30/2025: Gustavo and Emmanuelle’s latest publication on “Nonparametric prediction of brain MRI microstructure using transfer learning” is now available online.

03/19/2025: Congrats to Gustavo and Emmanuelle on their new paper accepted for publication in Imaging Neuroscience.

09/10/2024: Welcome to Megan Martin, incoming BioE graduate student who will do a rotation with us this Fall. 

08/12/2024: Congratulations to Gustavo Chau on successfully defending his PhD thesis entitled: "Mapping Brain Tissue Microstructure in Epilepsy with Multi-Modal MRI"! 

 

Jennifer A. McNab, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Director of Industry Collaborations

RSL Division
Department of Radiology
School of Medicine

Stanford University