(letters addressed to Dr. Byron Bernal, President of fMRI Consulting)
"...Our fMRI program started in 1998 under the direction of Dr. Bernal. Doctor Bernal has been instrumental in the education of the profesional and technical personnel in this new field. He possesses ample theoretical and empirical knowledge related to functional MRI, which includes neuropsychology and neuroradiology aspects closely related to his professional background and encompasses computer knowledge of different platforms, and numerous medical imaging processing software. Dr. Bernal developed our methods for data transfer, full analysis, and statistical interpretation of single subjects and groups. ....
Dr. Bernal has participated in several investigations the result of which have been published in significant peer-reviewed journals and presented at national and international meetings.
These achievements have been of great importance for our Hospital which, to date, remains the only institution in South Florida performing fMR for clinical purposes.
Dr. Bernal has conducted more than 1,500 functional MRIs, in more than 750 patients and subjects.
Dr. Nolan Altman
Chief of the department of Radiology
Miami Children's Hospital
September /2006
"...Dr. Byron Bernal has instructed from scratch our technologists, computer scientist, and neuroradiologists in the procedures to acquire, transfer, process and interpret functional MRI data."..."Has educated, explained and helped us to design the basic paradigms to assess auditory, visual, motor and language functions"..."Has also conducted a 7 days training lecture-course to educate our team on the physical bases of fMRI along with conferences on distinct aspects of clinical importance in conducting and interpreting fMRI results in normal subjects and patients". "Dr. Bernal has continued overseeing the quality of the work, through the Internet. "
"Our institution, IATM, has performed more than 70 fMRI studies in the past 1-year and a half. Some of the have been done for planning neurosurgical procedures, and others for research purposes, including evaluation of the visual, auditory, sensory-motor and language activations in normal volunteers."
"We also want to mention that the fMRI program developed in conjunction with Dr. Bernal has allowed us to have a comprehensive functional brain protocol that integrates the technical neurophysiological and computation aspects of this technic, all of this, with free source software available in the Web.
Dr. Jorge Andres Delgado de Bedout
Scientific Director
Instituto de Alta Tecnologia Medica de Antioquia (IATM)
August /2006
(Translated from Spanish)
"The Department of Diagnostic Imaging at the ´Fundacion Santa Fe de Bogotá´ certifies that Dr. Byron Bernal has performed a process in [our] Department, that consisted of conferences on the bases and applications of functional MRI. These conferences were addressed to different groups of physicians, and thecnologists of the Department. ..... Dr. Bernal taught and initiated the multidisciplinary group needed to perform functional MRI. ...Dr. Bernal gave direct training to the different groups conforming the fMRI team, gave thorough explanations of the procedure to neuropsychologists, about the foundations of the different paradigms, their methods of design and objective, stressing in particular the basic paradigms for motor, visual, auditory and language activation....." ¨Likewise, with the group of neuroradiologists to whom he gave direct instruction about the foundations of fMR, its applications, and exam perfroming. Further, he explained the neuroanatomy, emphasizing functional aspects necesary for the interpretation and reading of the fMR studies.¨...
"In addition, during this training period , the software needed for post processing, was installed and specific training for the computer engineer was provided."
"An important enthusiasm to perform and continue the study of fMRI with the aim of settle the technique for both clinical and research purposes, was set by Dr. Bernal in all groups receiving this training and induction course."
Dr. Diego Andres Aguirre
Director Department of Diagnostic Imaging, Fundación Santa Fe de Bogotá
Dra. Sonia Bermudez
Chief of Neuroradiology Section, Fundación Santa Fe de Bogotá.
University Hospital
Dicember /2007
