MRI of the Brain in Moving Subjects Application to Fetal, Neonatal and Adult Brain

Abstract

Abstract-Imaging in the presence of subject motion has been an ongoing challenge for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In this paper some o f the important issues regarding the acquisition and reconstruction of anatomical and DTI imag ing of moving subjects are addressed; methods to achieve high resolution and high Signal to Noise Rat io (SNR) volu me data. Excellent fetal brain 3D Apparent Diffusion Coefficient maps in high resolution have been achieved for the first time as well as pro mising Fractional Anisotropy maps. Growth curves for the normally developing fetal brain have been devised by the quantificat ion of cerebral and cerebellar volu mes as well as someone dimensional measurements. A Verhulst model is to describe these growth curves, and this approach has achieved a correlation over 0.99 between the fitted model and actual data.