Chapel Hill, N.C. — The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded $2 million to the medical school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Wednesday.

The money is to be spent on a magnetic resonance scanner to be used in NIH research being performed on campus.

Among the projects at the university's Biomedical Research Imaging Center are three studies of brain development.

With the new scanner, researchers will have access to images of the body that are both clearer than the current equipment allows. It also works quicker, so patients don't have to be still for as long while scans are taken.