Multinuclear imaging for clinical 7T MRI

Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston MA

Investigators

Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY This application requests funding to upgrade a whole-body 7T MR human clinical scanner (Tera system by Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc.) with advanced multi-nuclear option (MNO). The proposed upgrade will enable MR imaging and spectroscopy of non-proton nuclei such as 2H, 3He, 7Li, 13C, 17O, 19F, 23Na, 31P, and 129Xe, for clinical research on patients and healthy volunteers, as well as animal models of disease. Our users and others have shown that multi-nuclear MR probes important molecular mechanisms in cancer, neurological, and psychiatric diseases, which cannot be probed by other means. This advanced hardware will enable innovative, accelerated, multinuclear-multimodal metabolic and molecular imaging to be performed in one imaging setting. The proposed multinuclear MR system will be an invaluable and unique resource for the rich translational research at the MGH Martinos Center and at other institutions in Boston. The proposed upgrade of the whole-body 7T MR for advanced multi-nuclear imaging will meet the Institution’s dual mission of technology development and translational research. The proposed 32 receive channels will allow innovative multi-array coil designs for multi-nuclear MR imaging with high resolution and speeding up the acquisition by tenfold. The plug-and-play ready feature will enable the utilization and sharing of innovative multi-nuclear imaging techniques in multi-center trials. As these innovative technologies move into the clinic, new insights into human disease will likely be forthcoming with this exciting multi-nuclear upgrade which will benefit a large number of investigators and patients for years to come. The proposed multi-nuclear MR system will be located within the MGH Martinos Center, which operates as a NCRR-funded National Research Resource, supplying state-of-the-art molecular imaging instrumentation and services to MGH and the broader research community nationwide. The Martinos Center has a renowned molecular imaging program, consistently producing successes with every new modality that has been incorporated into our program, such as MRI, MEG, EEG, PET, Nano-particle MRI and Optical Imaging. With the same rigor and dedication, we anticipate the successful development of an advanced multi-nuclear and multi- modal metabolic imaging program with support from NIH for the proposed instrument.