Tag Archives: MRI

Compressed Sensing for Rapid MRI: Need for Speed

MRI is a fascinating imaging technology used to visualize the internal structures of the body. However, acquisition speed still remains a challenge especially for patients who are anxious, can’t keep still or have limited breath hold capacity. These challenges can be solved with Compressed Sensing (CS) which helps us in decreasing the acquisition times without sacrificing image quality.

Conventionally, the compression of images is performed after the acquisition of the entire image. This is done to reduce data storage and facilitate transfer of such data. The idea behind CS is to compress and acquire only the most important coefficients of the signal during the acquisition.

What types of brain scanning technology currently exist?

There are a bunch of techniques (that I know of), and none of them are exactly easy to explain. Let me start by listing the types I know of – they can easily be found on the internet :

1) EEG
2) CAT
3) PET
4) MRI
5) fMRI
6) MEG

Now, for the details. I will do my best to break each down into as basic a description as I can, but I may overlook some concepts. Let me know. I’m not going to go into much detail on the diagnostic uses for each technique, but I will make a mention of at least one possibility for each.