Synopsis

Keywords: Cross-organ: Neonatal, Cross-organ: Antenatal, Image acquisition: Fast imaging

Exciting challenges in the field of fetal and neonatal imaging drive novel engineering and analysis solutions both for data acquisition and analysis. These include among others novel coils for dedicated fetal and neonatal use, the exploration of novel field strengths, both high and low, multi-modality imaging combining eg EEG and fMRI, novel MRI sequences combining multiple contrasts, a move towards whole uterus acquisitions combined with dedicated processing employing AI and SVR to achieve organ-specific information as well as a drive towards real-time information being employed for QA or to react to unpredictable fetal motion.

Objectives

After attending this educational talk, the participants should

• Understand the challenges of fetal and neonatal imaging
• Have an overview over novel approaches in this area, both on the acquisition and analysis side
• Understand how novel field strengths, dedicated hardware and multi-modal imaging can reveal new information about brain development
• Have gained novel information on strategies employed on the sequence side (multi-contrasts, read-out strategies)
• Have an overview over key areas of current research (real-time strategies, AI-driven scanning and analysis)

Overview

1. Challenges of fetal and neonatal imaging

• Safety
• Motion
• Artifacts (B0, B1)

2. Hardware and new settings

• Exploring new field strengths (ultra-high field and low field for neonates, low field for fetuses)
• Dedicated hardware
• Multi-modality imaging (EEG-MRI)

3. Sequence advances

• Multi-contrast techniques
• New read-outs to achieve higher motion robustness

4. New scanning strategies

• Whole uterus acquisitions combined with novel SVR solutions
• Real-time tracking and following (QA, re-acquisition, etc)
• AI-driven automatic segmentation and reconstruction

Acknowledgements

No acknowledgement found.

References

No reference found.