Development of functional and spectroscopic MRI at 4.7 tesla

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This research project is developing new imaging and spectroscopic techniques for MRI at a very high magnetic field.  The field strength used is 4.7 Tesla which is three times higher than a standard clinical MRI machine.  This triple-strength MRI machine is capable of producing better images than the standard clinical MRI machines. It is the highest field MRI in Canada for human use, and is only used for research. It is especially useful for understanding human brain function, but the techniques to perform this have not yet been developed. The project will develop two tools for examining human brain function called: functional MRI and spectroscopic imaging.  Both tools have the potential to be very useful, but the development process is not simple.  The development requires knowledge of electrical engineering, physics and computing to program the MRI machine and understand how the signals evolve in time.  Once developed, the spectroscopic imaging method will tell us about the chemical workings of the brain, while the functional MRI method will tell us about how the brain is activated when performing set tasks.  The overall goal of the project is to develop the new techniques so other researchers can then explore brain function using this very sensitive triple-strength MRI machine.