Clinical electromagnetic brain scanner.

Stroke is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide, and early diagnosis and prompt medical intervention are thus crucial. Frequent monitoring of stroke patients is also essential to assess treatment efficacy and detect complications earlier. While computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are commonly used for stroke diagnosis, they cannot be easily used onsite, nor for frequent monitoring purposes.

Case Report: Preliminary Images From an Electromagnetic Portable Brain Scanner for Diagnosis and Monitoring of Acute Stroke.

Electromagnetic imaging is an emerging technology which promises to provide a mobile, and rapid neuroimaging modality for pre-hospital and bedside evaluation of stroke patients based on the dielectric properties of the tissue. It is now possible due to technological advancements in materials, antennae design and manufacture, rapid portable computing power and network analyses and development of processing algorithms for image reconstruction. The purpose of this report is to introduce images from a novel, portable electromagnetic scanner being trialed for bedside and mobile imaging of ischaemic and haemorrhagic stroke.

Flexible Electromagnetic Cap for Three-Dimensional Electromagnetic Head Imaging.

The timely treatment is the crucial element for the survival of patients with brain stroke. Thus, a fast, cost-effective, and portable device is needed for the early and on-the-spot diagnosis of stroke patients. A 3D electromagnetic head imaging system for rapid brain stroke diagnosis with a wearable and lightweight platform is presented.

Flexible Electromagnetic Cap for Head Imaging.

A wideband wearable electromagnetic (EM) head imaging system for brain stroke detection is presented. The proposed system aims at overcoming the challenges of size, rigidity, and complex structures of existing systems. The proposed system is built into a light-weight and compact imaging platform, which integrates a 16-element antenna array into a highly flexible custom-made wearable cap made of a cost-effective and robust room-temperature-vulcanizing (RTV) silicone.

In vivo sensitivity estimation and imaging acceleration with rotating RF coil arrays at 7 Tesla.

Using a new rotating SENSitivity Encoding (rotating-SENSE) algorithm, we have successfully demonstrated that the rotating radiofrequency coil array (RRFCA) was capable of achieving a significant reduction in scan time and a uniform image reconstruction for a homogeneous phantom at 7 Tesla. However, at 7 Tesla the in vivo sensitivity profiles (B1(-)) become distinct at various angular positions. Therefore, sensitivity maps at other angular positions cannot be obtained by numerically rotating the acquired ones.

Model for b1 imaging in MRI using the rotating RF field.

Conventionally, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is performed by pulsing gradient coils, which invariably leads to strong acoustic noise, patient safety concerns due to induced currents, and costly power/space requirements. This modeling study investigates a new silent, gradient coil-free MR imaging method, in which a radiofrequency (RF) coil and its nonuniform field (B 1 (+)) are mechanically rotated about the patient. The advantage of the rotating B 1 (+) field is that, for the first time, it provides a large number of degrees of freedom to aid a successful B 1 (+) image encoding process.

Fully automatic lesion segmentation in breast MRI using mean-shift and graph-cuts on a region adjacency graph.

Purpose: To present and evaluate a fully automatic method for segmentation (i.e., detection and delineation) of suspicious tissue in breast MRI.

Highly accelerated acquisition and homogeneous image reconstruction with rotating RF coil array at 7T-A phantom based study.

Parallel imaging (PI) is widely used for imaging acceleration by means of coil spatial sensitivities associated with phased array coils (PACs). By employing a time-division multiplexing technique, a single-channel rotating radiofrequency coil (RRFC) provides an alternative method to reduce scan time. Strategically combining these two concepts could provide enhanced acceleration and efficiency.

An analysis of the gradient-induced electric fields and current densities in human models when situated in a hybrid MRI-LINAC system.

MRI-LINAC is a new image-guided radiotherapy treatment system that combines magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with a linear accelerator (LINAC) in a single unit. One drawback is that the pulsing of the split gradient coils of the system induces an electric field and currents in the patient which need to be predicted and evaluated for patient safety. In this novel numerical study the in situ electric fields and associated current densities were evaluated inside tissue-accurate male and female human voxel models when a number of different split-geometry gradient coils were operated.

Numerical safety study of currents induced in the patient during rotations in the static field produced by a hybrid MRI-LINAC system.

MRI-LINAC is a new image-guided radiotherapy treatment system that combines magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and a linear particle accelerator (LINAC) into a single unit. Moving (i.e.

Multilayer integral method for simulation of eddy currents in thin volumes of arbitrary geometry produced by MRI gradient coils.

Purpose: This article aims to present a fast, efficient and accurate multi-layer integral method (MIM) for the evaluation of complex spatiotemporal eddy currents in nonmagnetic and thin volumes of irregular geometries induced by arbitrary arrangements of gradient coils.

Methods: The volume of interest is divided into a number of layers, wherein the thickness of each layer is assumed to be smaller than the skin depth and where one of the linear dimensions is much smaller than the remaining two dimensions. The diffusion equation of the current density is solved both in time-harmonic and transient domain.

Hign acceleration with a rotating radiofrequency coil array (RRFCA) in parallel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

This study explores the performance of a novel hybrid technology, in which the recently introduced rotating RF coil (RRFC) was combined with the principles of Parallel Imaging (PI) to improve the quality and speed of magnetic resonance (MR) images. To evaluate the system, a low-density naturally-decoupled 4-channel rotating radiofrequency coil array (RRFCA) was modelled and investigated. The traditional SENSitivity Encoding (SENSE) reconstruction method and the means of calculating the geometry factor distribution (g map) were adapted to take into account the transient sensitivity encoding.

Electromechanical design and construction of a rotating radio-frequency coil system for applications in magnetic resonance.

While recent studies have shown that rotating a single radio-frequency (RF) coil during the acquisition of magnetic resonance (MR) images provides a number of hardware advantages (i.e., requires only one RF channel, avoids coil-coil coupling and facilitates large-scale multinuclear imaging), they did not describe in detail how to build a rotating RF coil system.

An orthogonal-based decoupling method for MRI phased array coil design.

A new 2 T 3-element orthogonal knee coil array based on the three-dimensional orthogonality principle was designed, constructed and used in a series of pilot magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies on a standardized phantom, and human and pig knees. The coil elements within this new coil array are positioned orthogonal to one another allowing problematic mutual coupling effects to be minimized without the use of any passive mutual decoupling schemes. The proposed method is appropriate for the design of transmit, receive and/or transceive radiofrequency (RF) coil arrays for applications in animal/human MRI and spectroscopic studies.

An improved quasi-static finite-difference scheme for induced field evaluation based on the biconjugate gradient method.

This paper presents a biconjugate gradient (BiCG) method that can significantly improve the performance of the quasi-static finite-difference scheme, which has been widely used to model field induction phenomena in voxel phantoms. The proposed BiCG method offers remarkable computational advantages in terms of convergence performance and memory consumption over the conventional iterative, successive overrelaxation algorithm. The scheme has been validated against other known solutions on a lossy, multilayered ellipsoid phantom excited by an ideal coil loop.

Analysis and measurements of magnetic field exposures for healthcare workers in selected MR environments.

There are concerns about workers repeatedly exposed to magnetic fields exceeding regulatory limits with respect to modern magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). As a result, there is need for an ambulatory magnetic field dosimeter capable of measuring these fields in and around an MRI scanner in order to evaluate the regulatory guidelines and determine any underlying exposure risks. This study presents results of tri-axial measurements using an ambulatory magnetic field dosimeter worn by workers during normal working shifts.

Numerical study of currents in workers induced by body-motion around high-ultrahigh field MRI magnets.

Purpose: To numerically evaluate the electric field/current density magnitudes and spatial distributions in healthcare workers when moving through strong, nonuniform static magnetic fields generated by the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system and to understand the relationship between the field characteristics and levels/distributions of induced field quantities.

Materials And Methods: Tissue-equivalent, whole-body male and female voxel phantoms are engaged to model the workers at various positions and variety of body motions around three real superconducting magnets with field strengths of 1.5 T, 4 T, and 7 T.

Exposure of workers to pulsed gradients in MRI.

Purpose: To numerically evaluate the electric field/current density magnitudes and spatial distributions in healthcare workers when they are standing close to the gradient coil windings near the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner ends.

Materials And Methods: Anatomically realistic, whole-body male and female voxel phantoms are engaged to model the workers at various positions near the ends of three cylindrical gradient coils (x-, y-, and z-axis gradients). The numerical calculations of induced fields are based on an efficient, quasistatic finite-difference method.

A parallel FDTD scheme for electromagnetic analysis and design of MRI system.

This paper presents a parallel-computing FDTD simulator for electromagnetic analysis and design applications in Magnetic Resonance Imaging system. It is intended to be a complete, high-performance FDTD model of an MRI system including all temporal RF and low-frequency field generating units and electrical models of the patient. The developed MRI-dedicated FDTD algorithm is adapted to a parallel computing architecture with the MPI library.

Right Ventricle Extraction by Low level and Model-based algorithm.

In this paper we present an algorithm as the combination of a low level morphological operation and model based global circular shortest path scheme to explore the segmentation of the right ventricle. Traditional morphological operations were employed to obtain the region of interest, and adjust it to generate a mask. The image cropped by the mask is then partitioned into a few overlapping regions.

Comparative Study of Symmetric and Asymmetric Cylindrical MRI Gradient Y-Coils in terms of Induced Eddy Currents.

We have recently introduced the concept of whole-body asymmetric MRI systems [1]. In this theoretical study, we investigate the PNS characteristics of whole-body asymmetric gradient systems as compared to conventional symmetric systems. Recent experimental evidence [2] supports the hypothesis of transverse gradients being the largest contributor of PNS due to induced electric currents.

Transient temperature rise in a mouse due to low-frequency regional hyperthermia.

A refined nonlinear heat transfer model of a mouse has been developed to simulate the transient temperature rise in a neoplastic tumour and neighbouring tissue during regional hyperthermia using a 150 kHz inductive coil. In this study, we incorporate various bio-energetic enhancements to the heat transfer equation and numerical validations based on experimental findings for the mouse, in terms of nonlinear metabolic heat production, homeothermy, blood perfusion parameters, thermoregulation, psychological and physiological effects. The discretized bio-heat transfer equation has been validated with the commercial software FEMLAB on a canonical multi-sphere object before applying the scheme to the inhomogeneous mouse voxel phantom.

Numerical modelling of thermal effects in rats due to high-field magnetic resonance imaging (0.5-1 GHZ).

A finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) thermal model has been developed to compute the temperature elevation in the Sprague Dawley rat due to electromagnetic energy deposition in high-field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The field strengths examined ranged from 11.75-23.