2011 Summer Project Week Quantitative Magnetic Susceptibility Mapping
Full Title of Project
Quantitative Magnetic Susceptibility Mapping
Key Investigators
- MIT: Clare Poynton
- BWH: Sandy Wells
Objective
Quantifying magnetic susceptibility in the brain from the phase of the MR signal provides a non-invasive means for measuring the accumulation of iron believed to occur with aging and neurodegenerative disease.
We describe a variational approach to susceptibility estimation that incorporates a tissue-air atlas to resolve ambiguity in the susceptibility estimates, while eliminating additional biasfields through application of the Laplacian.
Results show qualitative improvement over two methods commonly used to infer underlying susceptibility values, and quantitative susceptibility estimates show better correlation with postmortem iron concentrations than competing methods.
The goal for this week is to apply this method to evaluate magnetic susceptibility of lesions associated with TBI.
Approach, Plan
Our plan for the project week:
- Discuss applications with collaborators and try to refine the algorithm
Progress
