Polarized Helium to Image the Lung

The main findings of the european PHIL project (Polarised Helium to Image the Lung) are reported. State of the art optical pumping techniques for polarising ^3He gas are described. MRI methodological improvements allow dynamical ventilation images with a good resolution, ultimately limited by gas diffusion. Diffusion imaging appears as a robust method of lung diagnosis. A discussion of the potential advantage of low field MRI is presented. Selected PHIL results for emphysema are given, with the perspectives that this joint work opens up for the future of respiratory medicine.Comment: To be published in Proc. ICAP 2004 (19th Int. Conf. on Atomic Physics, Rio, July 26-30 2004

History and physical principles of MRI

International audienceThe first chapter of the three-volume Magnetic Resonance Imaging Handbook describes the historical and physical background of modern nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) methods and techniques

Signal feedback applications in low-field NMR and MRI

International audienceTuned pick-up coils with high quality factors $Q$ are used in NMR and MRI for high-sensitivity and low-noise detection. However, large $Q$-factors introduce bandwidth issues at low frequency and the associated enhanced currents may cause significant radiation damping effects, especially with hyperpolarised samples. Signal feedback can be used to actively control these currents and adjust the detection bandwidth without resistive losses. Capacitive and inductive coupling methods are compared using detailed models and the operating conditions for efficient feedback with negligible noise penalty are discussed. Several high-impedance commercial preamplifiers have been found to affect the resonance characteristics of tuned coils in a gain-dependent way, or could not be used in low-frequency NMR because of oscillations at large positive gain. This is attributed to an undocumented internal feedback, and could be neutralised using external feedback. The implementation of an inductive coupling scheme to feed a suitably amplified phase-adjusted signal back into the PU coils of low-field NMR systems is described, and three experimental applications are reported. One system is used for NMR studies of distant dipolar field effects in highly polarized liquid $^3$He without or with radiation damping. The moderate intrinsic $Q$-factor ($\approx$7) could be reduced (down to 1) or increased (up to 100) to control transient maser oscillations. Another system was used for MRI of water samples around 2~mT with $Q\approx$190 Litz-wire detection coils. The detection bandwidth was increased by actively reducing the $Q$-factor to obtain uniform sensitivities in images and avoid artifacts introduced by intensity corrections. Finally, parallel acquisition in MRI was performed using two separately tuned detection coils placed above and below the sample. They were actively decoupled using two feedback systems. For an imaging field of view smaller than the sample, artifact-free unfolded images demonstrate the efficiency of this active coil decoupling scheme

Concomitant B1 Field in Low-Field MRI: Potential Contributions to TRASE Image Artefacts

International audienceTRansmit Array Spatial Encoding (TRASE) MRI uses trains of rf pulses produced by transmit coils which generate transverse fields of uniform magnitude and spatially varying directions. These coils also unavoidably generate concomitant rf fields, which in turn affect magnetisation dynamics during rf flips in low-field NMR. Bloch's equation are numerically solved to show that π-pulses imperfectly reverse transverse magnetisation and that the resulting error in azimuthal angle linearly increases with B1/B0, with the number of pulses in the TRASE pulse train, and with distance from the coil axis in the sample. This may induce significant image distortions or artefacts. Supporting experiments performed at 2 mT will be reported

Unconventional trajectories on the Bloch Sphere: A closer look at the effects and consequences of the breakdown of the rotating wave approximation

International audienceTRASE MRI uses rapid π-pulses of phase gradient fields, and in general requires as many as two distinct phase-gradient coils per encoding direction. This tends to restrict one to large amplitude, linear B1 fields, which in low B0 field leads to a breakdown of the rotating wave approximation. We have studied this regime both numerically and experimentally. Our results show a rich behavior involving a complex interplay of the Bloch-Siegert shift, the B1 start and stop phase, and B1 amplitude transients

An active feedback scheme for low field NMR experiments

7 pagesInternational audienceIn low field nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) it is desirable to combine proper characteristics of the detection scheme with a good signal to noise ratio. For example, a reduced coupling between the sample and the detection coil is needed for NMR with highly magnetized samples and a large bandwidth is required in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We discuss a solution based on a simple active feedback circuit that preserves the signal to noise ratio as opposed to traditional solutions which do not. We give illustrations of its use in experiments on low temperature hyperpolarized liquid 3He-4He mixtures and in hyperpolarized 3He gas MRI