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Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Example dataset for the hMRI toolbox
    (Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier, 2019) Callaghan, Martina F.; Lutti, Antoine; Ashburner, John; Balteau, Evelyne; Corbin, Nadège; Draganski, Bogdan; Helms, Gunther; Kherif, Ferath; Leutritz, Tobias; Mohammadi, Siawoosh; Phillips, Christophe; Reimer, Enrico; Ruthotto, Lars; Seif, Maryam; Tabelow, Karsten; Ziegler, Gabriel; Weiskopf, Nikolaus
    The hMRI toolbox is an open-source toolbox for the calculation of quantitative MRI parameter maps from a series of weighted imaging data, and optionally additional calibration data. The multi-parameter mapping (MPM) protocol, incorporating calibration data to correct for spatial variation in the scanner's transmit and receive fields, is the most complete protocol that can be handled by the toolbox. Here we present a dataset acquired with such a full MPM protocol, which is made freely available to be used as a tutorial by following instructions provided on the associated toolbox wiki pages, which can be found at http://hMRI.info, and following the theory described in: hMRI – A toolbox for quantitative MRI in neuroscience and clinical research [1].
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    hMRI - A toolbox for quantitative MRI in neuroscience and clinical research
    (Orlando, Fla. : Academic Press, 2019) Tabelow, Karsten; Balteau, Evelyne; Ashburner, John; Callaghan, Martina F.; Draganski, Bogdan; Helms, Gunther; Kherif, Ferath; Leutritz, Tobias; Lutti, Antoine; Phillips, Christophe; Reimer, Enrico; Ruthotto, Lars; Seif, Maryam; Weiskopf, Nikolaus; Ziegler, Gabriel; Mohammadi, Siawoosh
    Neuroscience and clinical researchers are increasingly interested in quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (qMRI) due to its sensitivity to micro-structural properties of brain tissue such as axon, myelin, iron and water concentration. We introduce the hMRI-toolbox, an open-source, easy-to-use tool available on GitHub, for qMRI data handling and processing, presented together with a tutorial and example dataset. This toolbox allows the estimation of high-quality multi-parameter qMRI maps (longitudinal and effective transverse relaxation rates and , proton density and magnetisation transfer saturation) that can be used for quantitative parameter analysis and accurate delineation of subcortical brain structures. The qMRI maps generated by the toolbox are key input parameters for biophysical models designed to estimate tissue microstructure properties such as the MR g-ratio and to derive standard and novel MRI biomarkers. Thus, the current version of the toolbox is a first step towards in vivo histology using MRI (hMRI) and is being extended further in this direction. Embedded in the Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) framework, it benefits from the extensive range of established SPM tools for high-accuracy spatial registration and statistical inferences and can be readily combined with existing SPM toolboxes for estimating diffusion MRI parameter maps. From a user's perspective, the hMRI-toolbox is an efficient, robust and simple framework for investigating qMRI data in neuroscience and clinical research.
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    High-resolution diffusion kurtosis imaging at 3T enabled by advanced post-processing
    (Lausanne : Frontiers Research Foundation, 2015) Mohammadi, Siawoosh; Tabelow, Karsten; Ruthotto, Lars; Feiweier, Thorsten; Polzehl, Jörg; Weiskopf, Nikolaus
    Diffusion Kurtosis Imaging (DKI) is more sensitive to microstructural differences and can be related to more specific micro-scale metrics (e.g., intra-axonal volume fraction) than diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), offering exceptional potential for clinical diagnosis and research into the white and gray matter. Currently DKI is acquired only at low spatial resolution (2–3 mm isotropic), because of the lower signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and higher artifact level associated with the technically more demanding DKI. Higher spatial resolution of about 1 mm is required for the characterization of fine white matter pathways or cortical microstructure. We used restricted-field-of-view (rFoV) imaging in combination with advanced post-processing methods to enable unprecedented high-quality, high-resolution DKI (1.2 mm isotropic) on a clinical 3T scanner. Post-processing was advanced by developing a novel method for Retrospective Eddy current and Motion ArtifacT Correction in High-resolution, multi-shell diffusion data (REMATCH). Furthermore, we applied a powerful edge preserving denoising method, denoted as multi-shell orientation-position-adaptive smoothing (msPOAS). We demonstrated the feasibility of high-quality, high-resolution DKI and its potential for delineating highly myelinated fiber pathways in the motor cortex. REMATCH performs robustly even at the low SNR level of high-resolution DKI, where standard EC and motion correction failed (i.e., produced incorrectly aligned images) and thus biased the diffusion model fit. We showed that the combination of REMATCH and msPOAS increased the contrast between gray and white matter in mean kurtosis (MK) maps by about 35% and at the same time preserves the original distribution of MK values, whereas standard Gaussian smoothing strongly biases the distribution.
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    hMRI - A toolbox for using quantitative MRI in neuroscience and clinical research
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2018) Balteau, Evelyne; Tabelow, Karsten; Ashburner, John; Callaghan, Martina F.; Draganski, Bogdan; Helms, Gunther; Kherif, Ferath; Leutritz, Tobias; Lutti, Antoine; Phillips, Christophe; Reimer, Enrico; Ruthotto, Lars; Seif, Maryam; Weiskopf, Nikolaus; Ziegler, Gabriel; Mohammad, Siawoosh
    Neuroscience and clinical researchers are increasingly interested in quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (qMRI) due to its sensitivity to micro-structural properties of brain tissue such as axon, myelin, iron and water concentration.We introduce the hMRI-toolbox, an easy-to-use tool openly available on GitHub, for qMRI data handling and processing, presented together with a tutorial and example dataset. This toolbox allows the estimation of high-quality multi-parameter qMRI maps (longitudinal and effective transverse relaxation rates R1 and R? 2, proton density PD and magnetisation transfer MT saturation) that can be used for accurate delineation of subcortical brain structures and calculation of standard and novel MRI biomarkers of tissue microstructure. Embedded in the Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) framework, it can be readily combined with existing SPM toolboxes for estimating diffusion MRI parameter maps, and it benefits from the extensive range of established SPM tools for high-accuracy spatial registration and statistical inferences. The hMRI-toolbox is an efficient, robust and simple framework for investigating qMRI data in neuroscience and clinical research.
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    Simultaneous adaptive smoothing of relaxometry and quantitative magnetization transfer mapping
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2017) Mohammadi, Siawoosh; DAlonzo, Chiara; Ruthotto, Lars; Polzehl, Jörg; Ellerbrock, Isabel; Callaghan, Martina F.; Weiskopf, Nikolaus; Tabelow, Karsten
    Attempts for in-vivo histology require a high spatial resolution that comes with the price of a decreased signal-to-noise ratio. We present a novel iterative and multi-scale smoothing method for quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data that yield proton density, apparent transverse and longitudinal relaxation, and magnetization transfer maps. The method is based on the propagation-separation approach. The adaptivity of the procedure avoids the inherent bias from blurring subtle features in the calculated maps that is common for non-adaptive smoothing approaches. The characteristics of the methods were evaluated on a high-resolution data set (500 mym isotropic) from a single subject and quantified on data from a multi-subject study. The results show that the adaptive method is able to increase the signal-to-noise ratio in the calculated quantitative maps while largely avoiding the bias that is otherwise introduced by spatially blurring values across tissue borders. As a consequence, it preserves the intensity contrast between white and gray matter and the thin cortical ribbon.