Course title: Magnetic Resonance Imaging Basics

Content and format: The course provides a basis for understanding MRI measurements, pitfalls and literature. The course is not practically enabling, but provides a starting point for further studies. It covers introductory MRI acquisition in a series of ~7 weekly interactive lectures starting August 23th, 2022. These include MR basics, acquisition methods and parameters with a focus on understanding. Detailed topics are described below. Active participation is required. 

The course starts at a level requiring little or no MR experience, and a technical background is not required. The target audience is employees and students at the MR department but the course is open for external participants (a fee may apply -- see below). 

The course gives a good basis for attending the independent and more technical spring course Medical Magnetic Resonance Imaging offered as part of the Biomedical Engineering program at the Technical University of Denmark, which is also available for non-DTU-students (offered under "Open University". Note that math & programming skills are required for the DTU course).

Dates, time, place: The course starts Tuesday afternoon 13:00-16:00, August 23th, 2022. With a few exceptions, the course continues weekly until October 11th (tentative lecture plan below). It will mostly be in room 23 in department 156 (conveniently located downhill from the MR-department near Hvidovre Hospital chapel wih own entrance). This page will be updated below to specify details. We need to move the teaching Sep 6th and Sep 13th to some other time (will be discussed in class)

Registration: The  course is open, but subject to a fee of DKK 5000 unless you are sufficiently connected to the DRCMR. Ask Karam Sidaros if in doubt (karams [AT] drcmr [DOT] dk), and sign up to Lars (larsh [AT] drcmr [DOT] dk) including info about your affiliation, and payment details, if relevant ("EAN number", address and reference). You will then be added to the course mailing list.

Literature and software: The course is initially based on notes http://eprints.drcmr.dk/37/ (also available in Danish). Other course notes, slides and relevant articles are provided during the course.

Credit: The course has a workload corresponding to 1.5 ECTS points. You do not, however, automatically get credit for the course in any education. You can get a certificate and apply for credit at your school, but be aware that no general evaluation is planned, which may be required for a credit-bearing course. An informal exam focused on your particular interests can be arranged on an individual basis upon request. This is required for the organizer to recommend 2 ECTS in total (up to 2.5 depending on assignments/exams. The DRCMR safety courses can also count).

Language: The course language is English. Participants are welcome to respond and ask questions in Danish, if preferred.

Organizer and lecturer:  Lars G. Hanson (senior scientist at DRCMR, and associate professor at the MR section, DTU).

Preliminary outline divided on weeks (more precise updates are sent to participants):

Aug 23, Part 1 (room 23 in department 156 (conveniently located downhill from the MR-department near the hospital chapel wih own entrance):

• Sections "Magnetic Resonance" until "Sequences" in MR notes are discussed during the coming few weeks (the English and Danish versions are similar). Protons, spin, net magnetization, precession, radio waves, resonance, relaxation, rotating and stationary frames of reference, T1 and T2.

Aug 30, Part 2 (same room as the previous week):

• Relaxation time weighting. Sequence diagrams, contrast, inversion, saturation
• Dephasing, refocusing, T2*, spin echoes
• Frames of reference
• Shimming

We need to move teaching Sep 6th and Sep 13th to some other time (will be discussed in class)

Part 3:

• Magnetic interaction with tissue
• Low tip angle excitation (FLASH)
• Excitation dynamics in rotating frame of reference
• Sources of contrast
• Sequence building blocks: Inversion, saturation, lipid/water suppression.

MR notes from "Imaging" and beyond are covered during the coming weeks.

Part 4:

• Gradients, slice selection
• Phase, phase rolls
• Imaging and k-space. Echo time revisited.

Part 5:

• k-space trajectories, artifacts (distortions, ghosting and aliasing), noise and image quality quantification.
• Sequence and weighting follow-up, BOLD contrast.

Part 6:

• Diffusion weighting and fMRI.

Part 7:

• Left-overs and other content to be decided.

The lecture plan is adjusted with respect to both subjects and timing during the course, and to some degree based on participant wishes. Updates are distributed to registered participants (see above). Room bookings to guide planning:  Room23 (23/8, 30/8, 27/9, 4/10, 11/10); Aud5 (20/9).

DRCMR is proud to have 5 members in the newly established Lundbeck Foundation Investigator Network. Melissa Larsen, Vanessa Wiggermann, Mathias L. Mathiasen, Lasse Christiansen, and David Meder will do their bit to connect and develop Danish neuroscience across labs and disciplines.

 

 

Read more about research at DRCMR, Precision Medicine, the impact of COVID-19, visiting professors, and developing key projects by downloading the report as a PDF file HERE.

 

In collaboration with Jason Stockmann from the MGH Martinos Center, Vincent Boer, Jan Ole Pedersen and Esben Thade Petersen at DRCMR and Philips Healthcare built a shim array coil for the NOVA head coil, to improve B0 sensitive sequences such as EPI at 7T. Everything you need to repeat this at home is in the paper! 

Link to the paper: https://rdcu.be/cMWaD

The DRCMR team at ISMRM 2022 after a delicious Thai dinner. 

 

If you are a technical minded MRI researcher eager to unleash the full potentials of 7T ultra-high field MRI through novel software and hardware solutions, then you might be the person we are looking for!

5-year Research Fellow position in advanced 7T MRI/MRS applications.

As a researcher at Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance (DRCMR) you will develop novel MRI sequences, hardware and processing methods often targeted for neuroscientific applications, but also body applications such as multi-nuclear spectroscopy of livers, legs, etc. We have a Philips 7T research only scanner with 2- and 8-channel transmit, 32 receive and 64 shim channels in addition to the standard 3rd order shim. In our hardware lab, we develop novel RF and shim coils for specific purposes ranging from dual tuned multinuclear coils to 8-channel multi transmit/receive coils.

You will contribute to an exciting field where there will be an opportunity to develop advanced MRI techniques and new computation methods in a multidisciplinary team of biomedical and clinical experts. You will be part of the Ultra-high-field MR group (www.drcmr.dk/7t).

DRCMR is one of the leading research centers for biomedical MRI in Europe (www.drcmr.dk). Our interdisciplinary research is geared to triangulate between MR physics, basic physiology, and clinical research. Approximately 70 researchers from a diverse range of disciplines work together to pursue basic and clinically applied MR research with a focus on structural, functional, and metabolic MRI of the human brain and its disorders. Collaboration is key at DRCMR – we do not expect any researcher to be able to do everything alone, but we expect everyone to be interested in sharing knowledge with colleagues.

The DRCMR is embedded in the Center for Functional and Diagnostic Imaging and Research, a large diagnostic imaging department, including all biomedical imaging modalities at Copenhagen University Hospital Hvidovre. DRCMR has close interaction with clinicians and radiologists and a state-of-the-art MR-research infrastructure, which includes a pre-clinical 7T MR scanner, six whole-body MR scanners (one 7T, three 3T and two 1.5T scanners), a neuropsychology laboratory, an EEG laboratory, and two laboratories for non-invasive brain stimulation.  

Your profile:

You are a self-motivated, creative and enthusiastic researcher with:

• A PhD degree in engineering, physics, biomedical sciences or a related field.
• At least 2-3 years postdoctoral experience within ultra-high field MRI.
• Excellent knowledge of MR physics and programming skills in C/C++, MATLAB or Python are required.
• Experience in MR sequence programming (preferably on Philips MR system).
• A clear interest in MRI image acquisition, reconstruction and image analysis.
• Affinity with medical applications.
• Strong communication and collaborative skills.

Your tasks:

• To work directly with other scientists to ensure that our research studies take full advantage of the 7T MRI to maximize the clinical information available in the multi-parametric MRI images (structural, functional and metabolic read-outs).
• To develop novel sequences and imaging analysis methods and possibly new hardware designs.
• To advance the field through your own research.
• To engage in internal education, grant writing, knowledge dissemination, and publication of results in international, recognized scientific journals.

Your position:

You will be employed for a five-year period at the DRCMR and join the ultra-high field MR group.

Salary and Terms of Employment:

Salary, pension and terms of employment are in accordance with the agreement between the Danish Regions (Danske Regioner) and the relevant professional organization. The salary depends on background education and seniority. Further, supplements can be negotiated. Note that candidates coming from abroad may be eligible for tax reductions. The position is open for candidates of all nationalities. We see diversity as strength and encourage everyone regardless of gender, age, ethnicity, disabilities or religion to apply.

Applications should include a cover letter, CV and list of publications. Applications must be submitted online through the Region H job portal. Click HERE.

Application deadline: 10 June 2022 at 08:00 (CET)

For further information regarding the position, please contact Associate Professor Esben Thade Petersen. Phone: +45 60577205; Email: esben [DOT] thade [DOT] petersen [AT] regionh [DOT] dk

 

On Friday 29 April 2022 Sadaf Farkhani defended her PhD thesis entitled "Soft Regression based on sparse unbalanced labels".

 

And she obviously did a great job. Congratulations, Sadaf.

 

 

As pdf, click HERE.

 On Friday 22 April 2022, Johanna Perens defended her PhD thesis entitled "Enabling multimodal whole-brain investigation for drug discovery". and she did a great job.

Congratulations from DRCMR!