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Biomedical subjects

A W Song

Publications and source records attributed to A W Song.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

Diffusion weighted fMRI at 1.5 T.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is capable of detecting task-induced blood oxygenation changes using susceptibility sensitive pulse sequences such as gradient-recalled echo-planar imaging (EPI). The local signal increases seen in the time course are believed to be due to an increase in oxygen delivery that is incommensurate with oxygen demands. To help isolate the sources of functional signal changes, the authors have incorporated various forms of diffusion weighting into EPI pulse sequences to characterize the apparent mobility of the functionally modulated protons. Results suggest that the majority of the functional signal at 1.5 T arises from protons that have apparent diffusion coefficients that are approximately four or five times higher than that of brain tissue. This implies that significant functional signal sources are either protons within the vascular space or protons from the perivascular space that is occupied by cerebrospinal fluid.

Adult

Optimized isotropic diffusion weighting.

The authors introduce several sets of time-efficient gradient waveforms for applying isotropic diffusion weighting in NMR experiments. This creates signal attenuation that depends on the trace of the diffusion tensor and is therefore rotationally invariant. Numerical methods for the calculation of such gradient sets are outlined, and results are shown for isotropic and anisotropic gradient hardware and first order flow moment nulled diffusion weighting gradients. Preliminary experimental results from the human brain validate this new technique.

Algorithms

Echo-volume imaging.

Two single-shot volume imaging techniques are described. The first, single-echo echo-volume imaging, is essentially the echo-volume imaging (EVI) sequence suggested by Mansfield (J. Phys. C. 10, L55 (1977)). The second is a multi-spin-echo approach in which one plane of k-space is collected during each spin echo. In both techniques, phase encoding gradients are applied in the z direction, and three-dimensional k-space is filled by a raster pattern in Cartesian coordinates. Spatial saturation is used to avoid aliasing in the y direction, and a selctive pulse is applied to excite the desired slab of tissue and eliminate aliasing in z. The average echo-times, measured from the center of the 90 degrees pulse to the center of the acquisition k-space (kx = ky = kz = 0), were 45 and 104 ms for single echo and multi-echo methods, respectively. Images of the human brain using both sequences are shown.

Artifacts