RF-MAFS · Novel RF Driven MRI Magnet for Imaging Enhancement

Novel RF Driven MRI Magnet for Imaging Enhancement

The RF-MAFS project is devoted to develop new technology in the portable Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) field. The problems of commercial MRI devices are their sizes and initial/operational cost. Also, their deployment involves large facilities inside hospitals which makes them impossible to be used inside Emergency Rooms (ER) or ambulances. There are different prototypes of portable MRI machines developed during the last decade. However, none of them posses neither the spatial resolution nor the sizes and EMC compatibility characteristics to be deployed in ER or ambulances. The proposed technology in this project addresses these to problems by developing the first Radio-Frequency Magic Angle Field Spinning magnet. In this way, a fundamental medical tool in injury and disease diagnosis will be available in ER, ambulances or even in low-budget medical facilities. The RF-MAFS magnet consist in 3 magnets producing 3 different fields. The first magnetic field aligns with the longitudinal axis of the sample under study. The second and the third magnetic fields lay in the transverse plane to the previous magnetic field. This two fields oscillate at the same frequency but out of phase by 90º. If they are also oriented in perpendicular directions, the result is a magnetic field which rotates at the oscillating frequency. The combination of both (longitudinal and rotating) magnetic fields results in a tilted and rotating RF-MAFS field. The amplitude of the longitudinal field with respect to the rotating field controls the tilting angle of the resultant field. An MRI pulse sequence inside such a magnet will result in a more spatially resolved image compared with the MRI image obtained in a MRI device that produce the same magnetic field but static. Therefore, a very portable MRI device (which will produce a low magnetic field compared with commercial equipment) will have its spatial resolution enhanced making it usable for early medical diagnosis of injuries or diseases. In order to develop the MRI machine based in the RF-MAFS magnet the objectives of this project are: 1º.- Design, build and test the RF-MAFS magnet able to host a sizable sample. 2º.- Design, build and test the electronics and the software needed to perform MRI experiments inside the RF-MAFS magnet. These two ambitious objectives have been carried out during two years with the budget provided by the MSCA Fellowship and the support of the government of the Basque Country through the Culture, Linguistics, Politics and Education Department, under Grant IT1104-16. The developed work has resulted in the MRI RF-MAFS prototype assembled and tested electronically and magnetically. It has also resulted in a MSc. Thesis and Graduate final Thesis as teaching training of the experienced researcher and several courses in project planning and management provided by the Government of the Basque Country. Despite the developed work completes the technology and the hardware/software is tested and characterized of the MRI system, the integration has not been completely debugged and therefore at the moment neither NMR nor MRI experiments have been developed. However, it is intention of the researcher to perform those experiments in the following semester, providing final evidences of the MRI enhancement resulting from the utilization of the RF-MAFS magnet.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз