Biography
Mentor: Shi-Jiang Li, PhD
Year Entered MCW: 2012
Previous Education: BS, Biomedical Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong University, 2007
Year Entered MCW: 2012
Previous Education: BS, Biomedical Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong University, 2007
Research Interests
My research focuses on improving the BOLD (blood-oxygen-level dependent) contrast in the fMRI application, as well as on improving the repeatability of the fMRI signal. To improve the contrast-to-noise ratio and repeatability, the most accepted approach is to increase acquisition duration. However, this method is not efficient enough, and motion artifacts usually become more severe during longer periods of data acquisition. As such, I am developing a new method, named the spatial compensated intro-shot turbo keyhole (SCITH) method. This multi-echo imaging technique aims to improve contrast within the same scan duration as is used in the current fMRI acquisition approach. The SCITH method is developed first at the 3T platform, but it can easily be transferred to the 7T platform. The conventional multi-echo approach is hard to implement due to the fast T2* decay at a strong magnetic field of 7T, but the SCITH method is capable of reducing the echo time interval between echoes as low as 6 ms that break the readout time limitation.