MPI: Magnetic particle imaging. Your Thoughts?

[DrBowtie]

I read an article on this emerging research. Instead of flipping hydrogen nuclei as MRI does it flips the electronic spin of ferromagnetic particles. A medical type device would use nanoscale tracers and have no natural background potentially enabling "exquisite sensitivity".

The article is an overview of the following article if you care to read the original:

B. Gleich, J. Weizenecker, Nature 435, 1214 (2005).

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[hans19]

I read an article on this emerging research. Instead of flipping hydrogen nuclei as MRI does it flips the electronic spin of ferromagnetic particles. A medical type device would use nanoscale tracers and have no natural background potentially enabling "exquisite sensitivity".

The article is an overview of the following article if you care to read the original:

B. Gleich, J. Weizenecker, Nature 435, 1214 (2005).

Interesting! Thanks for the reference. MRI is pretty sensitive as it is, the limitations of current MR techniques are specificity and resolution (at best 256 x 256 matrix).

High-resolution Ultrasound shows a lot of promise in the experimental phase. It offers spatial resolution on the order of 10-100 microns-- much better than CT(~0.5 mm).

 

[Docxter]

Interesting! Thanks for the reference. MRI is pretty sensitive as it is, the limitations of current MR techniques are specificity and resolution (at best 256 x 256 matrix).

High-resolution Ultrasound shows a lot of promise in the experimental phase. It offers spatial resolution on the order of 10-100 microns-- much better than CT(~0.5 mm).

Actually, the matrix size limit for MRI is not 256 x 256. I am almost sure that even at your place some of the sequences are done with a higher matrix. Next time, look at the matrix size for a seizure MRI (e.g. the higher matrix FSE T2 or gradient echo ones). They're going to be of higher matrix. In fact, there is no real theoretical limit to the resolution of MRI. The problem is that in practice, the very long time or low signal to noise limits the practicality of using higher resolution MRI images. For research purposes, we would get 0.05 mm (50 micron) voxel size images, but we would have to run the sequence for about 18 hours (start the sequence in the afternoon and come back the next day). Higher field machines and parallel imaging helps to alleviate this to some extent. 1024 matrix is a reality now in clinical MRI. Look at these:

A whole body 1024 matrix:
http://www.medical.philips.com/main...al_clinical/achieva/achieva_totalbody_im1.jpg

A frontal sinus 1024 matrix:
http://www.medical.philips.com/main...eral_clinical/achieva/achieva_hrneuro_im5.jpg