ISMRM 25th Annual Meeting & Exhibition • 22-27 April 2017 • Honolulu, HI, USA

Educational Session: MR Physics & Techniques for Clinicians
Educational Course

ORGANIZERS: Marcus T. Alley, Ph.D. & Bernd Jung, Ph.D.

 
Wednesday, 26 April 2017
Room 316BC  08:15 - 10:15 Moderators:  Marcus Alley, Daniel Gallichan

Skill Level: Basic to Intermediate
Slack Channel: #e_crosscutting
Session Number: W02

Overview
This two-hour course will be a basic and comprehensive review of MRI physics and techniques. The presentations will be non-mathematical and suitable for clinicians and physicists new to the field. The course will cover advanced MRI techniques including ultra-fast imaging, parallel imaging and an overview of the types of artifacts that appear in MR imaging.

Target Audience
This course is primarily designed for the clinician who will benefit from an understanding of the "how’s and why’s" of MR imaging. While it requires no prior experience with MR, those with some familiarity and experience will also benefit. Those interested may include: radiologists and clinicians relatively new to MR imaging (including residents and fellows), experienced radiologists and clinicians wanting a refresher course in MR physics, and physicists and engineers wanting an introduction to the field.

Educational Objectives
Upon completion of this course, participants should be able to:
-Describe the principles of perfusion imaging and diffusion weighted imaging;
-Describe the principles and applications of parallel imaging for accelerated MR imaging; and
-Review techniques and applications for MR angiography.

 

 
08:15
 		 Diffusion & Perfusion Weighted Imaging
Samantha Holdsworth
This lecture is devoted to the basic technological aspects of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) and perfusion-weighted imaging (PWI), using neuroimaging applications as examples, and with the concepts explained with minimal use of equations. 

 
08:55
 		 Parallel Imaging
Katherine Wright
This review of parallel imaging techniques will focus on learning basic principles and its clinical use. Specifically, we will discuss how data are accelerated, and the resulting aliasing artifacts that occur. We will explore how coil sensitivities and parallel imaging reconstruction methods can be used to reconstruct undersampled data. Lastly, we will review clinical applications of parallel imaging.

 
09:35
 		 MR Angiography
Oliver Wieben
Traditional clinical MR Angiography (MRA) provides volumetric datasets to characterize the vessel lumen. These MRA techniques can be generally separated into two categories: contrast-enhanced MRA, which requires the venous injection of a paramagnetic contrast agent in form of a Gadolinium (Gd) chelate and non-contrast-enhanced MRA (NCE MRA), which relies on signal properties of the blood or the motion of the blood to create signal differences between the blood pool and the surrounding tissues. The underlying contrast mechanisms of contrast-enhanced (CE MRA), time-of-flight, phase-contrast, and balanced steady state free precession (bSSFP) MRA  will be discussed including recent developments in accelerated dynamic contrast-enhanced MRA (CE-MRA), the use of iron-based contrast agents, and velocity-encoded MRI.

 
10:15
 		 Adjournment
 

The International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine is accredited by the Accreditation Council for
Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians.