​The overarching goal of the BAOBAB unit is to build large instruments for neuroimaging from ultra-high magnetic fields to population imaging. 

Affiliated to CEA, Paris-Saclay University and CNRS, the unit comprises three distinct laboratories:

• METRIC laboratory, directed by Alexandre Vignaud, develops ultra-high and extreme fields MRI methods and hardware to map the human and non-human primate brains at unprecedented resolutions.
  
• CIEL laboratory, directed by Sébastien Mériaux, develops innovative methodologies for understanding the biophysics of brain mechanisms such as metabolism, neuronal activity and molecules transport, both in normal and pathological conditions using ultra-high and extreme field MRI and MRS, ultrasounds, and histology, following a translational strategy from animals to humans.
  
• GAIA laboratory, directed by Jean-François Mangin, develops new computer vision systems dedicated to the modeling of the inter-subject variability of complex brain phenotypes, is the algorithmic forefront of the exploitation of high field MRI, designs dedicated artificial intelligence methods and software environments to exploit brain phenotypes in a variety of contexts (biomarker research, genetics, cognitive neuroscience, etc).
  

BAOBAB also ensures the development of methodological research on the NeuroSpin platform, currently equipped with preclinical and clinical imagers:

• Preclinical 7T MRI (Benoït Larrat)
• Preclinical 11,7T MRI (Fawzi Boumezbeur) 
• Preclinical 17T MRI (Luisa Ciobanu)
• Clinical 3T MRI (Caroline Le Ster)
  
• Clinical 7T MRI (Vincent Gras)
• Clinical 11,7T MRI (Nicolas Boulant / Franck Mauconduit)

In addition, BAOBAB also includes two support cells to support the optimization of data acquisition on all imagers :

• The MRI electronics and Instrumentation cell develops the peri-MRI stimulation and signal capture equipment needed to carry out research projects in cognitive neuroscience. (Alexis Amadon)
  
• The Histology and Cell Culture laboratory is dedicated to the histopathological analysis of the experimental models used by the various preclinical projects of NeuroSpin. (Françoise Geffroy)
  
• ​IS Infrastructure and Basic Software Cell (Pascal Stokowski)
  
• Mechanics and prototyping cell (Jérémy Bernard)
  
• Multicenter Data Analysis Cell - Big Data (Marie Chupin, Yann Cointepas & Jean-François Mangin)

• Data Analysis Cell (Antoine Grigis, Isabelle Denghien-Courcol, Yann Leprince & Antonio Moreno)