Development of functional and spectroscopic MRI at 4.7 tesla

这项研究项目正在为极高磁场下的MRI开发新的成像和光谱技术。使用的磁场强度为4.7特斯拉，是标准临床MRI机器的三倍。*这台三倍强度的MRI机器能够产生比标准临床MRI机器更好的图像。这是加拿大人类使用的最高场磁共振成像，仅用于研究。它对了解人脑功能特别有用，但实现这一点的技术尚未开发出来。该项目将开发两种检查人脑功能的工具：功能磁共振成像和光谱成像。这两种工具都有潜力非常有用，但开发过程并不简单。开发需要电气工程、物理和计算知识，以对核磁共振机器进行编程，并了解信号如何在时间上演变。一旦开发出来，光谱成像方法将告诉我们大脑的化学工作原理。而功能核磁共振方法将告诉我们大脑在执行设定任务时是如何被激活的。但该项目的总体目标是开发新技术，这样其他研究人员就可以使用这台非常灵敏的三倍强度核磁共振机器来探索大脑功能。

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.