Alexis Amadon

Artifacts and pitfalls in diffusion MRI

Although over the last 20 years diffusion MRI has become an established technique with a great impact on health care and neurosciences, like any other MRI technique it remains subject to artifacts and pitfalls. In addition to common MRI artifacts, there are specific problems that one may encounter when using MRI scanner gradient hardware for diffusion MRI, especially in terms of eddy currents and sensitivity to motion. In this article we review those artifacts and pitfalls on a qualitative basis, and introduce possible strategies that have been developed to mitigate or overcome them. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2006.

Specialization for written words over objects in the visual cortex

The Visual Word Form Area (VWFA) is part of the left ventral visual stream that underlies the invariant identification of visual words. It remains debated whether this region is truly selective for words relative to common objects; why this particular part of the visual system is reproducibly engaged in reading; and whether reading expertise also relies on perceptual learning within earlier visual areas. In this fMRI study we matched written words and line-drawings of objects in luminance, contour length and number of features. We then compared them to control images made by scrambling procedures that kept local features intact. Greater responses to written words than to objects were found not only in the VWFA, but also in areas V1/V2 and V3v/V4. Furthermore, by contrasting stimuli reduced either to line junctions (vertices) or to line midsegments, we showed that the VWFA partially overlaps with regions of ventral visual cortex particularly sensitive to the presence of line junctions that are useful for object recognition. Our results indicate that preferential processing of written words can be observed at multiple levels of the visual system. It is possible that responses in early visual areas might be due to some remaining differences between words and controls not eliminated in the present stimuli. However, our results concur with recent comparisons of literates and illiterates and suggest that these early visual activations reflect the effects of perceptual learning under pressure for fast, parallel processing that is more prominent in reading than other visual cognitive processes.

Local SAR reduction in parallel excitation based on channel-dependent Tikhonov parameters.

To reduce the local specific absorption rate (SAR) obtained with tailored pulses using parallel transmission while obtaining homogenous flip angle distributions.

Universal pulses: A new concept for calibration-free parallel transmission.

A calibration‐free parallel transmission method is investigated to mitigate the radiofrequency (RF) field inhomogeneity problem in brain imaging at 7 Tesla (T).

Quantification of iron in the non-human primate brain with diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging

Pathological iron deposits in the brain, especially within basal ganglia, are linked to severe neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinsons disease. As iron induces local changes in magnetic susceptibility, its presence can be visualized with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The usual approach, based on iron induced changes in magnetic relaxation (T2/T2), is often prone, however, to confounding artifacts and lacks specificity. Here, we propose a new method to quantify and map iron deposits using water diffusion MRI. This method is based on the differential sensitivity of two image acquisition schemes to the local magnetic field gradients induced by iron deposits and their cross-term with gradient pulses used for diffusion encoding. Iron concentration could be imaged and estimated with high accuracy in the brain cortex, the thalamus, the substantia nigra and the globus pallidus of macaques, showing iron distributions in agreement with literature. Additionally, iron maps could clearly show a dramatic increase in iron content upon injection of an UltraSmall Particle Iron Oxide (USPIO) contrast agent, notably in the cortex and the thalamus, reflecting regional differences in blood volume. The method will benefit clinical investigations on the effect of iron deposits in the brain or other organs, as iron deposits are increasingly seen as a biomarker for a wide range of diseases, notably, neurodegenerative diseases in the pre-symptomatic stage. It also has the potential for quantifying variations in blood volume induced by brain activation in fMRI studies using USPIOs.

Word meaning in the ventral visual path: a perceptual to conceptual gradient of semantic coding

The meaning of words referring to concrete items is thought of as a multidimensional representation that includes both perceptual (e.g., average size, prototypical color) and conceptual (e.g., taxonomic class) dimensions. Are these different dimensions coded in different brain regions? In healthy human subjects, we tested the presence of a mapping between the implied real object size (a perceptual dimension) and the taxonomic categories at different levels of specificity (conceptual dimensions) of a series of words, and the patterns of brain activity recorded with functional magnetic resonance imaging in six areas along the ventral occipito-temporal cortical path. Combining multivariate pattern classification and representational similarity analysis, we found that the real object size implied by a word appears to be primarily encoded in early visual regions, while the taxonomic category and sub-categorical cluster in more anterior temporal regions. This anteroposterior gradient of information content indicates that different areas along the ventral stream encode complementary dimensions of the semantic space.

B0 homogeneity throughout the monkey brain is strongly improved in the sphinx position as compared to the supine position

To map B0 distortions throughout the monkey brain in the two positions commonly used for NMR studies (the prone sphinx position and the supine position) in order to test the hypothesis that B0 homogeneity in the sphinx position is significantly improved as compared to the supine position.

Fast accurate MR thermometry using phase referenced asymmetric spin-echo EPI at high field

A novel highly accurate method for MR thermometry, effective at high field, is introduced and validated, which corrects for slow and fast field fluctuations by means of reference images.

Homogeneous non-selective and slice-selective parallel-transmit excitations at 7 Tesla with universal pulses: A validation study on two commercial RF coils

Parallel transmission (pTx) technology, despite its great potential to mitigate the transmit field inhomogeneity problem in magnetic resonance imaging at ultra-high field (UHF), suffers from a cumbersome calibration procedure, thereby making the approach problematic for routine use. The purpose of this work is to demonstrate on two different 7T systems respectively equipped with 8-transmit-channel RF coils from two different suppliers (Rapid-Biomed and Nova Medical), the benefit of so-called universal pulses (UP), optimized to produce uniform excitations in the brain in a population of adults and making unnecessary the calibration procedures mentioned above. Non-selective and slice-selective UPs were designed to return homogeneous excitation profiles throughout the brain simultaneously on a group of ten subjects, which then were subsequently tested on ten additional volunteers in magnetization prepared rapid gradient echo (MPRAGE) and multi-slice gradient echo (2D GRE) protocols. The results were additionally compared experimentally with the standard non-pTx circularly-polarized (CP) mode, and in simulation with subject-specific tailored excitations. For both pulse types and both coils, the UP mode returned a better signal and contrast homogeneity than the CP mode. Retrospective analysis of the flip angle (FA) suggests that the FA deviation from the nominal FA on average over a healthy adult population does not exceed 11% with the calibration-free parallel-transmit pulses whereas it goes beyond 25% with the CP mode. As a result the universal pulses designed in this work confirm their relevance in 3D and 2D protocols with commercially available equipment. Plug-and-play pTx implementations henceforth become accessible to exploit with more flexibility the potential of UHF for brain imaging.

Individual Brain Charting, a high-resolution fMRI dataset for cognitive mapping

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) has furthered brain mapping on perceptual, motor, as well as higher-level cognitive functions. However, to date, no data collection has systematically addressed the functional mapping of cognitive mechanisms at a fine spatial scale. The Individual Brain Charting (IBC) project stands for a high-resolution multi-task fMRI dataset that intends to provide the objective basis toward a comprehensive functional atlas of the human brain. The data refer to a cohort of 12 participants performing many different tasks. The large amount of task-fMRI data on the same subjects yields a precise mapping of the underlying functions, free from both inter-subject and inter-site variability. The present article gives a detailed description of the first release of the IBC dataset. It comprises a dozen of tasks, addressing both low- and high- level cognitive functions. This openly available dataset is thus intended to become a reference for cognitive brain mapping.