Encoding Biophysical Properties
Arvin Arani1
1Mayo Clinic, United States

Synopsis

Keywords: Contrast mechanisms: Elastography, Contrast mechanisms: Diffusion, Contrast mechanisms: Perfusion

Physical phenomena such as diffusion, perfusion, blood flow, hemodynamics, and tissue biomechanical properties impact the complex MRI signal (magnitude and phase). MRI pulse sequence strategies can be used to efficiently encode the coherent and or incoherent motion associated with these phenomena. Post-processing techniques can then be employed to generate qualitative and/or quantitative images mapping these biophysical properties. This course will look at the basic physics behind each phenomenon, mathematically describe its impact on the MRI signal, and present simple pulse sequence strategies to encode this information.

Syllabus

Physical biological phenomena such as diffusion, perfusion, blood flow, hemodynamics, and tissue biomechanical properties impact the complex MRI signal (magnitude and phase). Motion-sensitizing gradients, blood tagging, and synchronization of hemodynamic effects with fast T2/T2* weighted imaging can be used to probe these physics phenomena. This course will look at the basic physics behind each phenomenon, mathematically describe its impact on the MRI signal, and present simple pulse sequence strategies to encode this information. Once the information is encoded in the MRI signa, post-processing techniques are needed to generate qualitative and/or quantitative images mapping these biophysical properties. This course will primarily focus on the encoding process with limited discussion on the post-processing techniques.

Target Audience

This course is targeted towards scientists and clinicians that want to get a basic understanding of how the signals used to generate different biophysical contrast mechanisms are encoded.

Course Content

  • A brief description of how coherent and incoherent motion are utilized to investigate diffusion, blood flow, hemodynamic effects, and tissue biomechanics (elastography).
  • A basic explanation of how the tagging of blood (arterial spin labelling) is used to create perfusion maps.
  • A brief outline of some of the pulse sequence strategies and physical models used to help encode each imaging contrast mechanism.
  • An explanation of how each biological phenomenon affects the complex MRI signal (magnitude, phase)

Acknowledgements

No acknowledgement found.

References

No reference found.
Proc. Intl. Soc. Mag. Reson. Med. 32 (2024)