Portable Magnetic Resonance Devices

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Portable Magnetic Resonance Devices
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NMR

• A spinning magnet in a magnetic field will
  precess
• Larmor frequency ? ? B
• Resonance absorb energy
• Radio frequency for nuclei
• Energy decay, relaxation times
• T1 spin-lattice
• T2 spin-spin

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Task 1
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance What are the basic
principles?
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MRI

• Need spatial information to form image
• Magnetic gradients
• RF pulse sequences
• Phase encoding

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Conventional MRI

• Uniform Magnetic field
• 1 part per million
• Field gradients superimposed
• to perturb field in defined way
• spatial information
• RF Pulse sequences
• image contrast
• combinations of relaxation times

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Task 2
Magnetic Resonance Imaging How did NMR develop
into MRI? What are the essential requirements?
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Hospital MRI

• Large - fills a room
• Expensive to buy
• 1M
• Expensive to run
• 100k p.a.

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Hospital MRI

• Superb images
• High resolution
• Multipurpose

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Idea Portable!

• Permanent magnet
• Natural inhomogeneities
• (But not too much!)
• Local relaxation times (0D)
• images (1D, 2D, 3D)

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Portable MR

• Small - suitcase?
• Cheap - 10s thousands
• Tailored for specific applications?

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Task 3
Magnetic Resonance Imaging Are there any uses
for small (portable) MR devices? Work out the
design specifications You might require for
these applications.
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Task 4
Magnetic Resonance Imaging How can we make it
small? Can you devise ways of meeting the
design criteria of Task 3?
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Task 5
Magnetic Resonance Imaging Can you identify
devices in which others have attempted to
meet the challenge?
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Aachen
the MObile Universal Surface Explorer or the
NMR-MOUSE
http//www.nmr-mouse.de/
http//www.aixnmr.com/
Bernhard Blümich
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Berkeley
Portable High-Resolution NMR Sensor
http//chemistry.berkeley.edu/Publications/news/sp
ring2005/nmr.htm
http//waugh.cchem.berkeley.edu/research/index.php
?rescat8