Characterization of Normal Brain Development Using Parallel MRI

描述(申请人提供)：能够提供具有精细解剖细节的图像，使磁共振成像(MRI)成为研究儿科受试者大脑结构和脑发育的最合适的成像方法之一。然而，MR对运动伪影高度敏感。如果没有镇静剂，从儿科人群中获得高质量的脑图像将是一项艰巨的任务。虽然镇静剂通常用于儿科患者的临床成像，但在研究研究中，它显然不是儿童成像的选择。因此，研究正常儿童和神经发育障碍儿童或高危儿童的大脑结构将需要开发新的MR方法。并行成像的最新进展为没有镇静的幼儿成像提供了理想的解决方案，因为在成像方法和线圈的设计中考虑了与儿科大脑相关的独特特征。例如，可以想象使用小得多的表面线圈，就像通常用于成人成像的表面线圈一样，以最大化信噪比(SNR)增益，而无需担心降低了对大脑深层结构的线圈灵敏度，并与并行成像相结合以减少数据采集时间。此外，专门为儿科大脑设计的新图像分析工具可以进一步增强我们定量测量正常大脑发育的能力。因此，这项提议的最终目标是开发专门的成像硬件和软件，用于对非常年幼的儿童进行成像，以便能够详细描述正常大脑发育的特征。具体地说，这项应用由两个主要部分组成：1)所需硬件(专用多通道相位阵列线圈)和软件(成像序列、重建方法和图像分析工具)的技术开发；2)应用这一新方法纵向研究对功能和认知发育高度关键的年龄范围内的正常大脑发育，但目前对此知之甚少(2周-2岁)。拟议的研究为研究人员带来了精通但互补的专业知识，包括来自马萨诸塞州综合医院的研究人员，他们在专用射频线圈和成像专业知识或并行成像方法和运动校正方案的硬件开发方面拥有广泛的技术专长，以及北卡罗来纳大学教堂山的研究人员，他们在为儿科对象成像、开发成像方法和开发新的图像分析工具方面拥有丰富的经验。总而言之，我们很有可能招募一大批儿科受试者进行纵向成像研究，在10分钟内减少数据采集时间，获得高质量的磁共振图像，用于定量表征正常的大脑发育。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The ability to provide images with exquisite anatomical details has made magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) one of the most suitable imaging methods for the study of brain structure and brain development in pediatric subjects. However, MR is highly sensitive to motion artifacts. Without sedation, it will be a daunting task to obtain high quality brain images from the pediatric population. While sedation is commonly used for clinical imaging in pediatric patients, it is clearly not a choice for imaging children in research studies. Therefore, investigations of brain structure in normal children and in children with, or at high risk for neurodevelopmental disorders will require developing new MR methodologies. Recent advances on parallel imaging offer an ideal solution for imaging very young children without sedation by taking the unique features associated with the pediatric brains into consideration for the designs of imaging methods and coils. For example, it is conceivable to use a much smaller surface coil as that typically employed for adult imaging to maximize signal-to-noise (SNR) gains without worrying about the reduced coil sensitivity for deep brain structures and in conjunction with the parallel imaging to reduce data acquisition time. In addition, new image analysis tools specifically designed for the pediatric brains can further augment our ability to quantitatively measure normal brain developments. Therefore, the ultimate goal of this proposal is to develop dedicated imaging hardware and software for imaging very young children so as to allowing detailed characterizations of normal brain development. Specifically, this application consists of two major components: 1) technical developments for the required hardware (dedicated multi-channel phase array coils) and software (imaging sequences, reconstruction methods, and image analysis tools) and 2) the application of this novel methodology to longitudinally study normal brain development in an age range that is highly critical for functional and cognitive development, yet poorly understood currently (2wk - 2 years old). The proposed studies bring investigators with well-versed, yet complementary expertise, including investigators from Massachusetts General Hospitals who have extensive technical expertise for hardware developments of the dedicated rf coils and imaging expertise or parallel imaging methods and motion correction schemes as well as investigators at UNC-Chapel Hill who have extensive experience on imaging pediatric subjects, developing imaging methods, and developing novel image analysis tools. Together, it is highly likely that we will be able to recruit a large cohort of pediatric subjects for conducting a longitudinal imaging study, to reduce data acquisition time within 10 min, to obtain high quality MR images for quantitative characterizing normal brain developments.