BME Faculty Candidate Seminar “Seeing the Invisible with Double Pulsed Field Gradient (Double-PFG) Magnetic Resonance (MR)”

Date/Time
Date(s) - 03/18/2010
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Dr. Evren Özarslan, Postdoctoral Fellow, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH

Section on Tissue Biophysics and Biomimetics, Program on Pediatric Imaging and Tissue Sciences, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health

 

Conventional MR imaging scans suffer from limited resolution that prohibits the visualization of individual cells thus providing information at coarse length scales. To obtain information at smaller length scales, the MR signal can be sensitized to the self-diffusion of water molecules whose motional history is influenced by the local microstructure. However, strong field gradients are typically required to infer information at cellular resolution when the traditional pulsed field gradient (PFG) technique, which employs a single pair of diffusion gradients, is used. In this talk, I will discuss an alternative approach comprising two diffusion gradient pulse pairs. Using this double-PFG technique, it is possible to characterize the size, shape, and orientational distribution of cellular compartments without the need to apply strong gradients. Theoretical predictions as well as early experimental findings demonstrate that double-PFG MR could be a powerful technique for monitoring morphological changes in tissue, and, as such, a valuable diagnostic tool.