Characterization of Normal Brain Development Using Parallel MRI

描述（申请人提供）：磁共振成像（MRI）能够提供精美的解剖细节图像，使其成为研究儿童大脑结构和大脑发育最合适的成像方法之一。然而，MR对运动伪影非常敏感。如果没有镇静，从儿童人群中获得高质量的脑图像将是一项艰巨的任务。虽然镇静通常用于儿科患者的临床成像，但在研究中，它显然不是儿童成像的选择。因此，对正常儿童和患有或有神经发育障碍高风险的儿童的大脑结构的调查将需要开发新的MR方法。平行成像技术的最新进展为没有镇静的幼儿提供了理想的成像解决方案，在设计成像方法和线圈时考虑到儿童大脑的独特特征。例如，可以想象使用一个更小的表面线圈，就像通常用于成人成像一样，以最大限度地提高信噪比（SNR）增益，而不必担心线圈对深部脑结构的灵敏度降低，并与并行成像相结合，以减少数据采集时间。此外，专门为儿童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，本提案的最终目标是开发专用的成像硬件和软件，用于成像非常年幼的儿童，以便对正常的大脑发育进行详细的描述。具体来说，该应用包括两个主要组成部分：1)所需硬件（专用多通道相控阵列线圈）和软件（成像序列，重建方法和图像分析工具）的技术开发；2)将这种新方法应用于纵向研究正常大脑发育的年龄范围，这对功能和认知发展至关重要，但目前知之甚少（2周- 2岁）。拟议的研究带来了精通但互补的专业知识的研究人员，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的硬件开发和成像专业知识或并行成像方法和运动校正方案方面拥有广泛的技术专长，以及北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校的研究人员，他们在儿科成像、开发成像方法和开发新型图像分析工具方面拥有丰富的经验。总之，我们很有可能招募大量的儿童受试者进行纵向成像研究，将数据采集时间缩短到10分钟以内，获得高质量的MR图像，以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.