• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.279-287
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• 2009

Magnetic resonance electrical impedance tomography (MREIT) is a new medical imaging modality providing cross-sectional images of a conductivity distribution inside an electrically conducting object. MREIT has rapidly progressed in its theory, algorithm and experimental technique and now reached the stage of in vivo animal and human experiments. Conductivity image reconstructions in MREIT require various steps of carefully implemented numerical computations. To facilitate MREIT research, there is a pressing need for an MREIT software package with an efficient user interface. In this paper, we present an example of such a software, called CoReHA which stands for conductivity reconstructor using harmonic algorithms. It offers various computational tools including preprocessing of MREIT data, identification of boundary geometry, electrode modeling, meshing and implementation of the finite element method. Conductivity image reconstruction methods based on the harmonic $B_z$ algorithm are used to produce cross-sectional conductivity images. After summarizing basics of MREIT theory and experimental method, we describe technical details of each data processing task for conductivity image reconstructions. We pay attention to pitfalls and cautions in their numerical implementations. The presented software will be useful to researchers in the field of MREIT for simulation as well as experimental studies.

• Proceedings of the KSMRM Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.17-17
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• 2003

목적： 생체 조직에서의 전기임피던스 분포는 생리적 기능에 대하여 풍부한 정보를 가지고 있다. 이러한 전기임피던스 분포는 전기임피던스단층촬영법(EIT)으로 구할 수 있으나 공간해상도가 열악하여 그 사용이 보편화되지 못하고 있다. 기존의 EIT의 한계점을 극복하기 위하여 EIT와 MRI 기술을 결합한 자기공명임피던스단층촬영법(MREIT： Magnetic Resonance Electrical Impedance Tomography)이 최근 제안되었다. MREIT는 영상복원 과정에서 x, y, z 3방향의 자속밀도 벡터를 필요로 하므로 MRI용 자석 내에서 물체를 3차원으로 회전하여 자속밀도 벡터를 구해야 한다. 이러한 3차원 회전은 MREIT가 실제 임상에 적용되는데 있어서 한계점으로 지적되고 있다. 본 논문에서는 물체 회전을 하지 않고 전기임피던스 분포를 얻을 수 있는 새로운 MREIT 방법을 제안하였다. 새로운 MREIT 방법의 원리에 대해서 소개하고 0.3T의 주자장세기를 갖는 연구용 MRI 시스템에서 얻은 MREIT영상을 소개하고자 한다.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.165-169
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• 2004

In Magnetic Resonance Electrical Impedance Tomography (MREIT), we inject current through electrodes placed on the surface of a subject and measure the induced magnetic flux density distribution using an MRI scanner. This requires a constant current source whose output pulses are synchronized with MR pulse sequences. In this paper, we present a design and performance analysis of a current source used in a 3.0T MREIT system. The developed current source was tested using a saline phantom. We found that its performance is satisfactory for the current MREIT system. We suggest future improvements for better SNR(signal-to-noise ratio).

• Communications of the Korean Mathematical Society
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.519-541
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• 2001

Magnetic Resonance Electrical Impedance Tomography(MREIT) is a new medical imaging technique for the cross-sectional conductivity distribution of a human body using both EIT(Electrical Impedance Tomography) and MRI(Magnetic Resonance Imaging) system. MREIT system was designed to enhance EIT imaging system which has inherent low sensitivity of boundary measurements to any changes of internal tissue conductivity values. MREIT utilizes a recent CDI (Current Density Imaging) technique of measuring the internal current density by means of MRI technique. In this paper, a mathematical modeling for MREIT and image reconstruction method called the alternating J-substitution algorithm are presented. Computer simulations show that the alternating J-substitution algorithm provides accurate high-resolution conductivity images.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.179-184
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• 2009

Magnetic Resonance Electrical Impedance Tomography (MREIT) is a new bio-imaging modality providing cross-sectional conductivity images from measurements of internal magnetic flux densities produced by externally injected currents. Recent MREIT studies demonstrated successful conductivity image reconstructions of postmortem and in vivo canine brain. However, the whole head imaging was not achieved due to technical issues related with electrodes and noise in measured magnetic flux density data. In this study, we used a new carbon-hydrogel electrode with a large contact area and injected 30 mA imaging current through a canine head. Using a 3T MREIT system, we performed a postmortem canine experiment and produced high-resolution conductivity images of the entire canine head. Collecting magnetic flux density data inside the head subject to multiple injection currents, we reconstructed cross-sectional conductivity images using the harmonic $B_z$ algorithm. The conductivity images of the canine head show a good contrast not only inside the brain region including white and gray matter but also outside the brain region including the skull, temporalis muscle, mandible, lingualis proprius muscle, and masseter muscle.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.30-37
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• 2006

Injecting currents into an electrically conducting subject, we may measure the induced magnetic flux density distributions using an MRI scanner. The measured data are utilized to reconstruct cross-sectional images of internal conductivity and current density distributions in Magnetic Resonance Electrical Impedance Tomography (MREIT). Injection currents are usually provided in a form of mono-polar or bi-polar pulses synchronized with an MR pulse sequence. Given an MRI scanner performing the MR phase imaging to extract the induced magnetic flux density data, the current source becomes one of the key parts determining the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the measured data. Since this SNR is crucial in determining the quality of reconstructed MREIT images, special care must be given in the design and implementation of the current source. This paper describes a current source design for MREIT with features including interleaved current injection, arbitrary current waveform, electrode switching to discharge any stored charge from previous current injections, optical isolation from an MR spectrometer and PC, precise current injection timing control synchronized with any MR pulse sequence, and versatile PC control program. The performance of the current source was verified using a 3T MRI scanner and saline phantoms.

• 한국지구물리탐사학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.1-6
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• 2007

Two impedance imaging systems of multi-frequency electrical impedance tomography (MFEIT) and magnetic resonance electrical impedance tomography (MREIT) are described. MFEIT utilizes boundary measurements of current-voltage data at multiple frequencies to reconstruct cross-sectional images of a complex conductivity distribution (${\sigma}+i{\omega}{\varepsilon}$) inside the human body. The inverse problem in MFEIT is ill-posed due to the nonlinearity and low sensitivity between the boundary measurement and the complex conductivity. In MFEIT, we therefore focus on time- and frequency-difference imaging with a low spatial resolution and high temporal resolution. Multi-frequency time- and frequency-difference images in the frequency range of 10 Hz to 500 kHz are presented. In MREIT, we use an MRI scanner to measure an internal distribution of induced magnetic flux density subject to an injection current. This internal information enables us to reconstruct cross-sectional images of an internal conductivity distribution with a high spatial resolution. Conductivity image of a postmortem canine brain is presented and it shows a clear contrast between gray and white matters. Clinical applications for imaging the brain, breast, thorax, abdomen, and others are briefly discussed.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.94-98
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• 2010

In magnetic resonance electrical impedance tomography (MREIT), a current-injection MR imaging method is adopted to produce a cross-sectional image of an electrical conductivity distribution in addition to MR images. The purpose of this study was to test the feasibility of MREIT for differentiating the canine lung parenchyma without and with pneumonia. Three normal healthy beagles and two mixed breed dogs with pneumonia were used. After attaching electrodes around the chest, we placed the dog inside our MR scanner. We injected as much as 30 mA current in a form of short pulses into the chest region. Reconstructed conductivity images of normal canine lungs exhibit a peculiar pattern of a relatively coarse salt and pepper noise. On the contrary, conductivity images of pneumonic canine lungs show significantly enhanced contrast of the lesions while the corresponding MR images show a little bit of contrast in the middle and caudal lung parenchyma due to the accumulation of pleural fluid. This preliminary study indicates that MREIT imaging of the chest may deliver unique new diagnostic information.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.461-468
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• 2009

Magnetic resonance electrical impedance tomography (MREIT) enables us to perform high-resolution conductivity imaging of an electrically conducting object. Injecting low-frequency current through a pair of surface electrodes, we measure an induced magnetic flux density using an MRI scanner and this requires a sophisticated MR phase imaging method. Applying a conductivity image reconstruction algorithm to measured magnetic flux density data subject to multiple injection currents, we can produce multi-slice cross-sectional conductivity images. When there exists a local region of fat, the well-known chemical shift phenomenon produces misalignments of pixels in MR images. This may result in artifacts in magnetic flux density image and consequently in conductivity image. In this paper, we investigate chemical shift artifact correction in MREIT based on the well-known three-point Dixon technique. The major difference is in the fact that we must focus on the phase image in MREIT. Using three Dixon data sets, we explain how to calculate a magnetic flux density image without chemical shift artifact. We test the correction method through imaging experiments of a cheese phantom and postmortem canine head. Experimental results clearly show that the method effectively eliminates artifacts related with the chemical shift phenomenon in a reconstructed conductivity image.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.464-471
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• 2010

Compressed sensing can be used to reduce scan time or to enhance spatial resolution in MRI. It is now recognized that compressed sensing works well in reconstructing magnitude images if the sampling mask and the sparsifying transform are well chosen. Phase images also play important roles in MRI particularly in chemical shift imaging and magnetic resonance electrical impedance tomography (MREIT). We reconstruct MRI phase images using the compressed sensing technique. Through computer simulation and real MRI experiments, we reconstructed phase images using the compressed sensing technique and we compared them with the ones reconstructed by conventional Fourier reconstruction technique. As compared to conventional Fourier reconstruction with the same number of phase encoding steps, compressed sensing shows better performance in terms of mean squared phase error and edge preservation. We expect compressed sensing can be used to reduce the scan time or to enhance spatial resolution of MREIT.