Characterization of Normal Brain Development Using Parallel MRI

描述（由申请人提供）：磁共振成像（MRI）能够提供具有精细解剖细节的图像，因此成为研究儿科受试者大脑结构和大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。虽然镇静通常用于儿科患者的临床成像，但它显然不是研究中儿童成像的选择。因此，在正常儿童和儿童的大脑结构的调查，或在神经发育障碍的高风险将需要开发新的MR方法。并行成像的最新进展通过考虑与儿科大脑相关的独特特征来设计成像方法和线圈，为在没有镇静的情况下对非常年幼的儿童进行成像提供了理想的解决方案。例如，可以想到使用如通常用于成人成像的小得多的表面线圈来最大化信噪比（SNR）增益，而不用担心针对深部脑结构的降低的线圈灵敏度，并且结合并行成像来减少数据采集时间。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。具体而言，此应用程序由两个主要组件组成：1）所需硬件的技术发展（专用多通道相控阵线圈）和软件（成像序列、重建方法和图像分析工具）和2）应用这种新的方法来纵向研究对功能和认知发育非常关键的年龄范围内的正常脑发育，但目前了解甚少（2周龄- 2岁）。拟议的研究使研究者具有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者，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具有广泛的技术专业知识，以及来自北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校的研究者，他们在儿科受试者成像、开发成像方法、并开发新的图像分析工具。总之，我们很有可能招募大量儿科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，用于定量表征正常大脑发育。

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.