Description

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used to produce high quality images of the body. This course will provide current/future PhD students and regular users of the MRI scanner available at GIfMI (Ghent Institute for Functional and Metabolic Imaging) with advanced knowledge about the sensitive balance and trade-offs between acquisition parameters, about sequences available for research and about quality control, data transfer and storage of MRI research data.

This course will go deep into the details of MRI acquisition parameters, the balance between the parameters and their trade-offs with the aim of maximizing signal (coil use, TR, TE, flip angle, number of averages, bandwidth), contrast (TI, MTC, contrast agents), spatial resolution (slice thickness, image matrix, FOV, recFOV) in a reasonable acquisition time, resulting in 2D slices or 3D volumes. A showcase of sequences for structural, functional and qualitative imaging, their applications and limitations could lead to new insights for participants future research projects and co-operations. Participants will learn about what’s next immediately and later on after the process of acquisition: data quality control at the scanner and offline, decision making on whether or not to repeat sequences, good practice on data transfer and data storage, and an introduction to data processing environments.