Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is one of the most important imaging modalities in medical diagnostics. MRI, as it is used today, was developed and implemented independently by P. Mansfield and P. Lauterbur in 1973. In the 21st century, MRI is highly developed, affording image resolutions on the order of 0.1 mm in human subjects and in the micrometer range in small objects, such as fixed specimens. In particular, parallel acquisition strategies have reduced the minimum scan time and allow for the acquisition of complete images in less than 30 ms. This has made real-time visualization of tissue movements feasible. For many pathologies, complete scan protocols are available to clinicians to use MRI in a black-box manner for disease diagnosis. We are refining existing methods and develop novel MRI techniques to improve biomedical diagnostics and open new analytical options. The major modalities we employ are:
- Cellular/molecular MRI
- macrophages / T cells labelled with iron oxide nanoparticles
- 19F MRI, 31P NMR spectroscopy and imaging
- heteronuclear proton MRI
- diffusion-based microstructure MRI
- Neuroimaging
- functional MRI
- BOLD fMRI
- BOLD fMRI + Ca2+ recordings
- BOLD fMRI + optogenetics: ofMRI
- in vivo MR spectroscopy
- DTI and fiber tracking
- functional MRI
- PET-MR
- parametric MRI:
- Relaxation time mapping
- CEST
We apply MR to detect and characterize pathologies and changes in morphology, physiology or metabolism across the full range of development and disease-related degenerative and regenerative processes. Our major interests include:
- Neural networks in the brain
- Structural and functional organization of neuronal networks
- Pain processing
- Epilepsy
- Infection and inflammation imaging
- Bacterial infections
- Immune cell tracking
- Endometriosis
- Tumor imaging