Office of Technology Development (OTD)

Thomas Prieto, MD

The typical way to control motion in real-time adaptive magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and spectroscopy is to sedate the patient and/or use a restraint system (e.g. straps) or fixtures that remind the patient to remain still. The use of post-processing techniques can help clean-up images affected by motion but these are not an ideal solution or as effective. A two camera motion detection system is being developed to subtract out motion, but to date has not solved the problem.

While most healthy adults can stay still and tolerate longer scan times, some patients such as infants, children, and claustrophobic patients often have difficulty remaining still. Sedation and/or restraint systems can be helpful with adults, but are not effective with children. Any patient motion reduces image quality and, if extreme, can degrade the image to the point that it is compromised and the scan must be repeated.

The current invention addresses the issue of external patient motion with a hardware and software solution that compensates in real-time for patient movement during an MRI acquisition. Retrograde reflector (RGR) technology is utilized for real-time motion detection and correction. The positional change data is fed to the MRI acquisition control system and the gradients are adjusted accordingly to maintain the center of the acquisition plane – thus eliminating motion artifacts.

• Provides optimized image quality by reducing or eliminating motion-induced artifacts
• Reduces the need for sedation for imaging some patients
• Reduces the need for re-scans or call-backs

The concept has been fully conceptualized and various key pieces of the system, including the camera, software and algorithms are currently being optimized.