Download or read book Motion robust Pulse Design for Parallel Transmission Excitation at Ultra high Field MRI written by Luke Watkins and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This note is part of Quality testing.

Download or read book Non selective Refocusing Pulse Design in Parallel Transmission for Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Human Brain at Ultra High Field written by Aurélien Massire and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), the increase of the static magnetic field strength is used to provide in theory a higher signal-to-noise ratio, thereby improving the overall image quality. The purpose of ultra-high-field MRI is to achieve a spatial image resolution sufficiently high to be able to distinguish structures so fine that they are currently impossible to view in a non-invasive manner. However, at such static magnetic fields strengths, the wavelength of the electromagnetic waves sent to flip the water proton spins is of the same order of magnitude than the scanned object. Interference wave phenomena are then observed, which are caused by the radiofrequency (RF) field inhomogeneity within the object. These generate signal and/or contrast artifacts in MR images, making their exploitation difficult, if not impossible, in certain areas of the body. It is therefore crucial to provide solutions to mitigate the non-uniformity of the spins excitation. Failing this, these imaging systems with very high fields will not reach their full potential.For relevant high field clinical diagnosis, it is therefore necessary to create RF pulses homogenizing the excitation of all spins (here of the human brain), and optimized for each individual to be imaged. For this, an 8-channel parallel transmission system (pTX) was installed in our 7 Tesla scanner. While most clinical MRI systems only use a single transmission channel, the pTX extension allows to simultaneously playing various forms of RF pulses on all channels. The resulting sum of the interference must be optimized in order to reduce the non-uniformity typically seen.The objective of this thesis is to synthesize this type of tailored RF pulses, using parallel transmission. These pulses will have as an additional constraint the compliance with the international exposure limits for radiofrequency exposure, which induces a temperature rise in the tissue. In this sense, many electromagnetic and temperature simulations were carried out as an introduction of this thesis, in order to assess the relationship between the recommended RF exposure limits and the temperature rise actually predicted in tissues.This thesis focuses specifically on the design of all RF refocusing pulses used in non-selective MRI sequences based on the spin-echo. Initially, only one RF pulse was generated for a simple application: the reversal of spin dephasing in the transverse plane, as part of a classic spin echo sequence. In a second time, sequences with very long refocusing echo train applied to in vivo imaging are considered. In all cases, the mathematical operator acting on the magnetization, and not its final state as is done conventionally, is optimized. The gain in high field imaging is clearly visible, as the necessary mathematical operations (that is to say, the rotation of the spins) are performed with a much greater fidelity than with the methods of the state of the art. For this, the generation of RF pulses is combining a k-space-based spin excitation method, the kT-points, and an optimization algorithm, called Gradient Ascent Pulse Engineering (GRAPE), using optimal control.This design is relatively fast thanks to analytical calculations rather than finite difference methods. The inclusion of a large number of parameters requires the use of GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) to achieve computation times compatible with clinical examinations. This method of designing RF pulses has been experimentally validated successfully on the NeuroSpin 7 Tesla scanner, with a cohort of healthy volunteers. An imaging protocol was developed to assess the image quality improvement using these RF pulses compared to typically used non-optimized RF pulses. All methodological developments made during this thesis have contributed to improve the performance of ultra-high-field MRI in NeuroSpin, while increasing the number of MRI sequences compatible with parallel transmission.

Download or read book Universal Parallel Transmission Pulse Design for the Human Brain and Spinal Cord MRI at 9 4T written by Ole Geldschläger and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Magnetic resonance imaging is a powerful, non-invasive technology to acquire anatomical images from the human body. Operating at a magnetic field strength of 7T or higher (i.e. ultrahigh field (UHF)) provides a higher signal-to-noise ratio, facilitates higher spatial resolutions, and potentially improves diagnostic sensitivity and specificity compared to clinical field strength, such as 1.5T or 3T. Unfortunately, UHF is accompanied with technical hurdles, from which the most problematic is the inhomogeneity in the radiofrequency transmit field. That can lead to spatially varying flip angles and, thus, to signal dropouts, local brightening or spatially altering imaging contrast. The most flexible approach to address this issue is the parallel transmission (pTx) technique, which itself has the disadvantage of a lengthy calibration procedure. To overcome the calibration procedure the 'universal pTx pulse' (UP) concept was introduced. It is a radiofrequency pulse design concept that relies on a pre-collected design database. The resulting pulses then work on a wide cohort of subjects without recalibration. As a first step, in this PhD project the advantages of imaging the human spinal cord at UHF were exploited. It was possible to acquire the first images from the human spinal cord at an ultrahigh in-plane resolution of 0.15x0.15mm2 at 9.4T. The images showed the tiny structures of the spinal cord in great detail. The signal-to-noise ratio and T2 *- times in the human spinal cord at 9.4T were presented. Furthermore, in this thesis the UP concept was further developed, in order to use UHF and the pTx technique more widely. While UPs were originally introduced for whole-brain or slice selective excitation, in this work a feasibility study for UPs for local excitation in the human brain (i.e. exciting only specific regions of the brain, while others should experience no excitation) was performed. UPs that locally excite the visual cortex area were calculated. The underlying transmit k-space trajectory for these radiofrequency pulses were 'spiral' trajectories. These local excitation UPs were successfully tested in vivo on nondatabase subjects at 9.4T. In a next step, the UP performance was further improved by optimizing the underlying transmit k-space trajectory to match the excitation target. The trajectory optimization and the UP design algorithms have been implemented into an open source software package (called OTUP) and demonstrated using simulations and in vivo experiments at 9.4T. The code was tested for three different target excitation pattern with varying complexity.

Download or read book Rf Pulse Design for Parallel Excitation in Magnetic Resonance Imaging written by Yinan Liu and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Parallel excitation is an emerging technique to improve or accelerate multi-dimensional spatially selective excitations in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) using multi-channel transmit arrays. The technique has potential in many applications, such as accelerating imaging speed, mitigating field inhomogeneity in high-field MRI, and alleviating the susceptibility artifact in functional MRI (fMRI). In these applications, controlling radiofrequency (RF) power deposition (quantified by Specific Absorption Rate, or SAR) under safe limit is a critical issue, particularly in high-field MRI. This \dissertation will start with a review of multidimensional spatially selective excitation in MRI and current parallel excitation techniques. Then it will present two new RF pulse design methods to achieve reduced local/global SAR for parallel excitation while preserving the time duration and excitation pattern quality. Simulations incorporating human-model based tissue density and dielectric property were performed. Results have show that the proposed methods can achieve significant SAR reductions without enlonging the pulse duration at high-fields.

Download or read book Computational Methods and Optimization Strategies for Parallel Transmission in Ultra High Field MRI written by Mihir Rajendra Pendse and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a powerful imaging modality that is widely used in medicine for both clinical and research purposes. Despite its success, there is still a demand for improved image quality in the form of higher SNR and resolution and a promising approach to achieve this is with higher static field strengths (7 Tesla and above) corresponding to the ultra high frequency (UHF) regime of the RF pulse. At these frequencies, wavelength effects and complex interactions with biological tissue become problematic leading to field inhomogeneity artifacts and tissue heating concerns quantified by the specific absorption rate (SAR). This dissertation will focus on the excitation portion of the imaging process with parallel transmission (pTx) that involves using a transmit RF coil with multiple independent transmit channels. pTx is an effective way to address the challenges of ultra high field MRI through optimization of the transmitted pulse in a patient-specific way. We introduce the Iterative Minimization Procedure with Uncompressed Local SAR Estimate (IMPULSE) which is a novel distributed optimization algorithm that has favorable scaling properties and eliminates the need for virtual observation points (VOPs) thus resulting in superior SAR performance and shorter computation time. The optimization problem is to minimize SAR over a pulse sequence consisting of multiple slice excitations while ensuring that the flip angle inhomogeneity (FAI) for each excited slice is within some user specified tolerance. IMPULSE uses the alternating direction method of mulitpliers (ADMM) to split the optimization into two subproblems, a SAR-update and a FAI-update, that are solved at each iteration until convergence. The SAR-update can be formulated as an unconstrained minimization of a piecewise quadratic function which can be solved efficiently by using a bundle method to build a piecewise linear surrogate that can easily be minimized. The computation time for the FAI-update can be reduced by exploiting parallelization and using an efficient algorithm for projection of a point onto an ellipsoid. IMPULSE achieves superior SAR performance and reduced computation time compared to a conventional approach using virtual observation points or compared to using a generic sequential quadratic programming (SQP) solver in MATLAB. Using the Duke head model consisting of over six million voxels, minimum SAR pTx pulses were designed for 120 slices within 45 seconds with an FAI tolerance of 5\% at each slice. IMPULSE combined with variable rate selective excitation (VERSE) can also be used to improve SAR performance and reduce computation time for simultaneous multislice (SMS) excitation with a pTx-SMS pulse. This method (IMPULSE-SMS) was used for the pTx-SMS task of the ISMRM RF Pulse Design competition in 2016 and resulted in a pulse that was about 20\% shorter than the second best submission and about 10 times shorter than a conventional approach (SAR-unaware pulse design without VERSE). Increasing the number of transmit channels in a coil can give more degrees of freedom to achieve flip angle uniformity and reduce SAR but also increases cost and complexity of the hardware. Studying the performance of massively parallel transmit arrays in simulation can help determine whether investment in these arrays is justified based on new applications that are enabled. An 84 channel loop array for 10.5T with 6 rows and 14 columns was simulated using the Ella body model and applied to two novel applications: power independent of number of slices (PINS) pulses combined with pTx for SMS excitation and SAR focusing for therapeutic hyperthermia. Using this coil in addition to an insertable head gradient (slew rate of 1500 T/m/s), a pulse duration of about 13ms for a 16 slice coronal excitation with 0.4mm slice thickness with 10\% FAI was achieved. SAR focusing is possible for a range of locations throughout the head (although focusing is better at the periphery than at the center). A solution to a simplified bioheat equation indicates that achievable temperature rise would be within acceptable range for some forms of hyperthermia (but not high enough to achieve for ablation). A significant concern in SAR-aware pTx is mismatch between the patient and the tissue model used for SAR estimation since running the optimization on a mismatched model can result in significantly higher SAR compared to a perfect match. One technique to introduce robustness to this mismatch is to use the SAR terms for voxels of multiple tissue models (rather than a single model) in the cost function of IMPULSE. Results indicate that using multiple poorly matched models can achieve similar SAR performance compared to using a single closely matched model indicating that the multiple model approach is a way to get by with a sparse model library that doesn't fully represent the entire human population. A more sophisticated approach is to use deep learning to predict the 3D SAR maps from measured magnetic field maps. An initial implementation of this concept shows promise but is still inconclusive.

Download or read book Parallel Transmit Pulse Sequence Design for Ultra high Field 7T MRI written by Yuan Belinda Ding and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Ultra High Field Neuro MRI written by Karin Markenroth Bloch and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2023-08-21 with total page 628 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ultra-High Field Neuro MRI is a comprehensive reference and educational resource on the current state of neuroimaging at ultra-high field (UHF), with an emphasis on 7T. Sections cover the MR physics aspects of UHF, including the technical challenges and practical solutions that have enabled the rapid growth of 7T MRI. Individual chapters are dedicated to the different techniques that most strongly benefit from UHF, as well as chapters with a focus on different application areas in anatomical, functional and metabolic imaging. Finally, several chapters highlight the neurological and psychiatric applications for which 7T has shown benefits. The book is aimed at scientists who develop MR technologies and support clinical and neuroscience research, as well as users who want to benefit from UHF neuro MR techniques in their work. It also provides a comprehensive introduction to the field. Presents the opportunities and technical challenges presented by MRI at ultra-high field Describes advanced ultra-high field neuro MR techniques for clinical and neuroscience applications Enables the reader to critically assess the specific UHF advantages over currently available techniques at clinical field strengths

Download or read book Fast High flip angle MRI Pulse Design for Parallel RF Transmission written by Rene Gumbrecht and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 85 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Novel Gradient Designs for Robust MR Flow Imaging and Low power Selective Excitation written by Daeho Lee and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Real-time magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides superior imaging environments for diagnosing and assessing heart disease due to its imaging speed and interactivity. This dissertation presents novel gradient design methods for robust MR flow imaging and low-power selective excitation where the interactivity permits the use of more efficient gradient waveforms. The peak velocity of stenotic blood flow can be measured more reliably by adopting more robust readout k-space trajectories against the artifacts from non-constant velocity and off-resonance. Peak RF power of selective excitation can be reduced by controlling the traversing speed in excitation k space. The peak velocity of transvalvular blood flow is a widely used metric in evaluating the severity of valvular stenosis. Doppler ultrasound (US) has been routinely used clinically due to the ability to provide velocity spectrum in real time. MR Doppler is the MR equivalent of Doppler US. It has been developed to provide a real-time velocity distribution of valvular blood flow. When compared to US, MRI has the advantage of providing unrestricted access to structures throughout the chest where US performance is degraded by poor acoustic window conditions caused by air or bone in the pathway. Moreover, MRI can assess various types of heart disease such as coronary disease, heart muscle abnormalities, tumors, and valve disease. In the context of comprehensive cardiac MRI, MR Doppler has been developed to provide a real-time velocity distribution of valvular blood flow. To better assess stenotic flow, both spatial excitation and data acquisition methods of the MR Doppler are improved through efficient k-space schemes. In particular, peak velocity detection capability can be improved by adopting an echo-shifted interleaved readout with a variable-density and circular k-space trajectory. The artifacts from non-constant velocity and off-resonance are reduced by the shorter echo and readout times of the echo-shifted interleaved acquisitions and temporal and spatial resolutions are improved through the variable-density and circular k-space sampling approach. A novel multipoint-traversing algorithm is introduced to achieve flexible gradient-waveform design. MR Doppler uses 2-D RF pulses. These are limited by the gradient and RF systems. A pulse needs to be either reshaped or redesigned when the peak RF power exceeds hardware or safety limits. Such RF power adjustment needs to be done online when RF waveforms are designed to reflect subject dependent main and RF field inhomogeneities as in parallel transmit. Variable-rate selective excitation (VERSE) technique can be used to limit the peak RF power without disrupting the on-resonance profile while minimizing the amount of reshaping via a local-only RF and gradient scaling. A simple and robust VERSE-guided RF pulse design framework is developed as an online RF reshaping tool in controlling peak RF power. VERSE principle is first generalized to a broader domain of multidimensional and multichannel excitation, where the conditions of identical spin rotation are formulated in excitation k space. Then, a noniterative time-optimal design method for VERSE is developed by translating peak RF limits into a gradient upper bounds in s domain, where the gradient upper bounds are used for a time-optimal gradient waveform designs. Implementation considerations are discussed to improve the fidelity of VERSE operation and an iterative approach is introduced to resolve the potential deviation of peak RF magnitude from the target value.

Download or read book Design of Radiofrequency Pulses for Parallel Transmit Systems at High field MRI written by Alessandro Sbrizzi and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Parallel Radiofrequency Transmission for 3 Tesla and 7 Tesla Magnetic Resonance Imaging written by Filiz Yetişir and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a noninvasive imaging technique with high soft tissue contrast. MR scanners are characterized by their main magnetic field strength. Commercially available clinical MR scanners commonly have main field strengths of 1.5 and 3 Tesla. Researchers increasingly explore clinical benefits of higher field strength scanners as they provide higher signal to noise ratio and higher resolution images. On the other hand, higher field strength imaging comes with increased image shading leading to non-uniform image contrast. Moreover, the tissue heating rate due to radiofrequency (RF) energy deposition (also called specific absorption rate or SAR) increases, limiting the imaging speed. Parallel RF transmission (pTx) was proposed to address both of these challenges by optimization of RF pulses transmitted from multiple independent channels simultaneously. However, both the RF pulse design and RF safety management become more complicated with pTx. In this work, a framework to apply pTx to 3T fetal and 7T brain imaging is developed to address the image shading and high SAR issues. Fetal imaging where a large pregnant torso is imaged rapidly to avoid fetal motion artifacts, suffers from similar levels of image shading and imaging limitations by SAR to 7T brain MRI. Hence the same techniques benefit both application domains. First, a SAR constrained pTx RF pulse design technique is developed for slice selective high flip angle imaging which is clinically the most common imaging technique. Next, the performance of the developed technique in reducing SAR and the image contrast non-uniformity is demonstrated through simulations and in phantom experiments for 7T brain imaging. Then, a comprehensive RF safety workflow for an 8 channel pTx system at 7T is developed. Finally, the potential of pTx for fetal imaging at 3T is demonstrated with simulation studies and a protected fetus mode of pTx was created using additional constraints in the RF pulse design. By addressing the two main RF transmission challenges associated with high and ultrahigh field MRI, this work aims to help bring the benefits of 7T brain imaging into routine clinical use and significantly improve the clinical experience for 3T fetal imaging.

Download or read book Design of Multidimensional Large Tip Angle Radiofrequency Pulses for Parallel Transmission in Magnetic Resonance Imaging written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Numerical Field Simulation for Parallel Transmission in MRI at 7 Tesla written by Jessica Ashley Bernier and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Parallel transmission (pTx) is a promising improvement to coil design that has been demonstrated to mitigate B1* inhomogeneity, manifest as center brightening, for high-field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Parallel transmission achieves spatially-tailored pulses through multiple radiofrequency (RF) excitation coils that can be activated independently. In this work, simulations of magnetic fields in numerical phantoms using an FDTD solver are used to estimate the excitation profiles for an 8-channel RF head coil. Each channel is driven individually in the presence of a dielectric load, and the excitation profiles for all channels are combined post-processing into a B1+ profile of the birdcage (BC) mode. The B1 profile is calculated for a dielectric sphere phantom with material properties of white matter at main magnetic field strengths of 3T and 7T to demonstrate center brightening associated with head imaging at high magnetic field strengths. Measurements of a circular ROI centered in the image show more B1+ inhomogeneity at 7T than at 3T. The B1* profile is then simulated for a numerical head phantom with spatially segmented tissue compartments at 7T. Comparison of the simulated and in vivo B1* profiles at 7T shows agreement in the B1 inhomogeneity. The results provide confidence in numerical simulation as a means to estimate magnetic fields for human imaging. This work will allow further numerical simulations to model the propagation of electric fields within the body, ultimately to provide an estimate of heat deposition in tissue, quantified by the specific absorption rate (SAR), which is a limiting factor of the use of high-field MRI in the clinical setting.

Download or read book Understanding and Overcoming Head Motion in Ultra high Field Magnetic Resonance Imaging with Parallel Radio frequency Transmission written by Alix Plumley and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Radio Frequency Pulse Designs for Magnetic Resonance Imaging at High Field written by Jason E. Moore and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Advanced Neuro MR Techniques and Applications written by In-Young Choi and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2021-11-17 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Advanced Neuro MR Techniques and Applications gives detailed knowledge of emerging neuro MR techniques and their specific clinical and neuroscience applications, showing their pros and cons over conventional and currently available advanced techniques. The book identifies the best available data acquisition, processing, reconstruction and analysis strategies and methods that can be utilized in clinical and neuroscience research. It is an ideal reference for MR scientists and engineers who develop MR technologies and/or support clinical and neuroscience research and for high-end users who utilize neuro MR techniques in their research, including clinicians, neuroscientists and psychologists. Trainees such as postdoctoral fellows, PhD and MD/PhD students, residents and fellows using or considering the use of neuro MR technologies will also be interested in this book. Presents a complete reference on advanced Neuro MR Techniques and Applications Edited and written by leading researchers in the field Suitable for a broad audience of MR scientists and engineers who develop MR technologies, as well as clinicians, neuroscientists and psychologists who utilize neuro MR techniques in their research

Download or read book Design Algorithms for Parallel Transmission in Magnetic Resonance Imaging written by Kawin Setsompop and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The focus of this dissertation is on the algorithm design, implementation, and validation of parallel transmission technology in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Novel algorithms are proposed which yield excellent excitation control, low RF power requirements, methods that extend to non-linear large-flip-angle excitation, as well as a new algorithm for simultaneous spectral and spatial excitation critical to quantification of low-SNR brain metabolites in MR spectroscopic imaging. For testing and validation, these methods were implemented on a newly developed parallel transmission platform on both 3 T and 7 T MRI scanners to demonstrate the ability of these methods for highfidelity B1+ mitigation, first by excitation of phantoms and then by human imaging. Further, spatially tailored RF pulses were demonstrated beyond conventional slice- or slab-selective excitation.