Lecture for scientists and clinicians interested in learning more details about the core software structure and control systems of an MRI machine.
MRI technology is based on the ability to control and observe changing electromagnetic fields as they interact with the subject being observed. This fundamental characteristic means that the operation of the machine consists of controlling electronic components that ultimately produce and receive the signals that drive the MR experiments.
The MRI spectrometer console is the main controller that directly interacts with all major subsystems. As the nature of an MRI experiments is very time sensitive, this controller must orchestrate the excitation and acquisition processes with great precision, exposing the design of temporal waveforms and the processing of the acquired data to the imaging scientist .
MRI has been a rich and fertile field for scientific research, largely because the design and processing of pulse sequences is ultimately done by software while generally not requiring hardware modifications. This has opened the scientific community to focus on the fundamental physics of MRI, while allowing a reasonable path to clinical experimentation. MRI equipment vendors provide tools to implement and develop new techniques and have greatly benefited from this synergistic relationship with the research community to advance the field. While tools or pulse sequence programming environments differ between MRI manufacturers, the fundamental characteristics of how they work are similar.
During this lecture, we will review the operation of the MRI spectrometer console, its interaction with the different subsystems, and how it is evolving to fulfill the demands of newer demanding applications. On the software side, we will also explore open source and vendor independent efforts to create next generation development environments to address current limitations and simplify the programming side for increasingly complex applications.