Invited Speaker 23rd International Society of Magnetic Resonance Conference 2023

Structural and functional applications of magnetic resonance electrical properties tomography (#97)

Caroline Rae 1 2 , Jun Cao 2 , Socrates Dokos 3 , Benjamin Cassidy 4 , Peter Hamburg 5 , Iain K Ball 6
  1. School of Psychology, UNSW, Sydney
  2. Neuroscience Research Australia, Sydney, Australia
  3. Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
  4. Pathfinder Exploration LLC, Nevada, USA
  5. Mark Wainwright Analytical Centre, Stats Central, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
  6. Philips Australia & New Zealand, North Ryde, Australia

Magnetic resonance electric properties tomography (MREPT) is an emerging imaging modality to noninvasively measure tissue conductivity and permittivity. Making MREPT a useful tool in human research requires precision, repeatability, ease of implementation and, preferably, a feasibly short scan time. We optimised and implemented a fast EPT approach that yielded 1mm resolution electrical conductivity measures with small (4-5%) standard deviations. These measures were found to be sensitive to the state of the brain; i.e. its activity. Accordingly, MREPT was further optimised for functional measures. Here, we demonstrate applications of functional conductivity imaging (fCI) to visual and somatosensory stimulation tasks in brain and cervical spine showing fCI to have utility for detecting brain activity beyond blood flow.