Pioneer of  Diffusion MRI (1980s) with the application of the method to questions of scientific and clinical importance (especially oncology). Diffusion MRI has become a pilar of medical imaging, implemented on all MRI scanners. Later extended the approach to Diffusion Tensor MRI (DTI) at the NIH. DTI has allowed, in particular, to visualize in 3D the connections in the brain in vivo for the first time (tractography, connectome), a powerful approach to understand the normal and diseased brain (neurological and psychiatric disorders).

Founding Director of NeuroSpin, an Institute which opened in 2007 in the CEA-Saclay campus, aimed at developing and using ultra high field Magnetic Resonance to understand the brain, from mouse to man. 

Iseult Project (11.7T Clinical MRI scanner) Founder and First Strategic Pilot. The project originated in 2001 and was finally launched by CEA in 2004. The first images obtained in the human brain were shown, as a world premiere in 2024.

Current research:

Brain: Mechanisms of neuronal network activation (neuromechanical coupling) and water diffusion models (water status); brain dynamics global network models (physics of consciousness); glymphatic system; ultra-high field MRI. 

Body: New IVIM/non-Gaussian diffusion signature biomarkers (oncology: breast & prostate cancer; radiation oncology: brain); diffusion-based virtual MR Elastography (oncology, liver diseases).