editorial advances in mri techniques and...

EditorialAdvances in MRI Techniques and Applications

Zhengchao Dong,1 Trevor Andrews,2 Chuanmiao Xie,3 and Takeshi Yokoo4

1Division of Translational Imaging and MRI Unit, College of Physicians and Surgeons,Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY, USA2MRI Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA3Department of Medical Imaging and Interventional Radiology, Cancer Center, Sun Yat-Sen University,Guangzhou, Guangdong, China4Advanced Imaging Research Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA

Correspondence should be addressed to Zhengchao Dong; [email protected]

Received 13 July 2015; Accepted 14 July 2015

Copyright © 2015 Zhengchao Dong et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons AttributionLicense, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properlycited.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been playing anincreasingly important role in biomedical research and inclinical diagnosis. The techniques of MRI have experiencedrapid development and found wide applications in recentyears. The technical development is marked not only by theimprovement and optimization of conventional MR imagingtechniques but also by the emergence of new pulse sequencessuch as CEST-MRI (Chemical Exchange Saturation TransferMRI) andDWIBS (Diffusion-weightedWhole-body Imagingwith Background body signal Suppression) and by newtechniques such as compressed sensing MRI and MR finger-printing. The wide proliferation of MRI techniques has ledto ever-increasing applications ofMR imaging and enormousnew findings in basic biomedical research as well as clinicalsciences. This special issue aims at reflecting the advances inMR imaging techniques and applications.

After rigorous review procedures, the selected papers inthis special issue demonstrate how broad the field of MRI hasbecome since Paul Lauterbur’s classic paper in 1973.The typesof papers include review articles as well as original research.Within this issue are papers that study not only data acquisi-tion and reconstructionmethods but also specialized analysismethods and new combinations of MR with therapeuticand interventional techniques. The imaging methods coverstructuralMRI, functionalMRI, diffusion-weighted imaging,and diffusion tensor imaging. The applications addressed aresimilarly wide reaching, containing cancer, liver diseases,brain function, and so forth.

Of particular note, this special issue contains severalpapers on perhaps the most common use of MRI in MRresearch centers: functional MRI (fMRI) of the brain. Neu-ronal activation in the brain results in local increase inthe oxygen-enriched blood in capillaries associated with thesignal change measured in traditional BOLD-based fMRI.One paper (J. Chung et al.) examines the fusiform faceregion and the fundamental confoundedness of the signalof blood from large vessels causing a mismatch between thelocalization of neuronal activation and that of fMRI signal.Once considered to be simply “physiological noise,” certaincharacteristic fluctuations in the fMRI signal during resthave been shown to be associated with specific neuronalnetworks. Due to the practical appeal of fMRI without tasks,we are including two review papers reflecting the recentgreat interest in clinical methods for “resting state” fMRI,one for multiple sclerosis (E. Sbardella et al.) and the otherfor psychiatric disorders (X. Zhan et al.). In a related paper(X. Li et al.), a temporal decomposition method is presentedwhich decomposes a single brain functional network intoseveral modes to explore dynamic brain functional networksin a continuous, “state-related,” “finger-force feedback” fMRIexperiment. Finally, two papers are included which highlightsome of the many ways in which advanced data acquisition(D. Kang et al.) and image reconstruction methods (P. K.Han et al.), such as segmented echo-planar imaging (EPI) andcompressed sensing, can help to overcome some of the imagequality obstacles of fMRI at high field strength.

Hindawi Publishing CorporationBioMed Research InternationalVolume 2015, Article ID 139043, 2 pageshttp://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/139043

2 BioMed Research International

Two other neuro-MRI studies are presented as wellregarding areas of strong interest in MR: diffusion tensorimaging (DTI) and MR guidance. In the first paper (T.-K.Truong et al.), a new method is presented for the correctionof eddy current-induced echo-shifting effect that producesthree types of artifacts, namely, the eddy current inducedsignal loss, the artificial signal modulation due to eddycurrent-induced erroneous𝑇∗

2weighting, and artificial signal

elevation associated with partial Fourier reconstruction. Thesecond paper (E. Vaghefi et al.) presents an MRI-based tech-nique to guide the noninvasive transcranial brain stimulationwithout the use of a neuronavigation system.

As MR has matured technically primarily for neuroap-plications, it has also proven to be increasingly useful forbody imaging. An example is the technique of real-time MRthermometry guidance for ultrasound ablation of uterinefibroids, in which excessive skin heating has been an obstacle.To address this issue, the feasibility and safety of utilizing awater-cooled device in contact with the skin are proposed andexamined in a paper (M. Ikink et al.). Another “hot topic” inbodyMRhas been the study of liver fibrosis, using a variety ofMRmethods (e.g.,MR elastography andDWI). In this issue, apaper (T. Yokoo et al.) is includedwhich examines the use of acombinedGd andUSPIOcontrast agent togetherwith textureanalysis to better depict the reticular signal abnormalitiesassociated with fibrosis. In a review of MRI for Crohn’sDisease (K. Yoon et al.), a variety of methods are presentedfor inflammatory bowel disease including endoluminal andintravenous contrast agents, DWI, dynamic bowel motilityimaging, and MR spectroscopy of fecal and urine samples.Finally,MR-basedmolecular imaging is presented in a reviewpaper (J. H. Kim et al.) focusing on labelling stem cell withnanoparticles in urology to evaluate migration and survivalof transplanted stems cells in prostate cancer and bladderdysfunction models.

With the many technical advances in the field, severalMR methods have demonstrated their utility in terms ofoncology. One paper (I. Thomassin-Naggara et al.) reviewsthe impact of perfusion and diffusion MRI and a new diag-nosticMR scoring system (AdnexMR) upon the preoperativediagnostic accuracy in women with possible ovarian cancer.The utility of combining structural, perfusion, diffusion, andMR spectroscopy data is also presented in this issue fortumour relapse prediction using multiparametric analysisin glioblastoma patients (E. Vaghefi et al.). The use of MR(using diffusion MR and/or dynamic contrast enhancement)to predict the response to neoadjuvant therapy is presented intwo papers (G.-Y. Zhang et al. and M. Petrillo et al.) focusingon nasopharyngeal carcinoma and rectal cancer, respectively.

In summary, the papers collected in this special issuecover a wide range of topics that are on the frontier of theMRI techniques and their applications.

Authors’ Contribution

Takeshi Yokoo and Trevor Andrews contributed equally tothe editorial.

Acknowledgment

We hereby thank the authors for their work and hope thisspecial issue will find interested readers in biomedical andclinical fields.

Zhengchao DongTrevor AndrewsChuanmiao XieTakeshi Yokoo

Submit your manuscripts athttp://www.hindawi.com

Stem CellsInternational

Hindawi Publishing Corporationhttp://www.hindawi.com Volume 2014


MEDIATORSINFLAMMATION

of


Behavioural Neurology

EndocrinologyInternational Journal of



Disease Markers


BioMed Research International

OncologyJournal of



Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity


PPAR Research

The Scientific World JournalHindawi Publishing Corporation http://www.hindawi.com Volume 2014

Immunology ResearchHindawi Publishing Corporationhttp://www.hindawi.com Volume 2014

Journal of

ObesityJournal of



Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine

OphthalmologyJournal of


Diabetes ResearchJournal of



Research and TreatmentAIDS


Gastroenterology Research and Practice


Parkinson’s Disease

Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Volume 2014Hindawi Publishing Corporationhttp://www.hindawi.com

editorial advances in mri techniques and...

Documents