H.1 Ultrasound Transducer for gating cardiac MRI scans

BME Capstone Project:  Ultrasound Transducer for gating cardiac MRI scans

A new type of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan allows imaging of the heart during cardiac and respiratory motion.  In order to make the best quality images of the heart, the signals from the MRI scanner need to be retrospectively gated to the cardiac and respiratory cycle.  Currently this is done by using signal that are inherent in the MRI acquisition, but this has been fraught with problems.

Ultrasound (US) has exceptional ability to image heart motion.  We propose to have a group investigate building an US transducer that can go inside of the MRI scanner and record cardiac and respiratory motion in realtime.

The group will need to investigate the compatibility or different US transducers in the MRI scanner and the ability to image motion signals from the heart with US and get signals out of the scanner.  We have access to an MRI scanner and we have an US expert as collaborator.