Detail

Keywords

Functional Magnetic Resonance; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Ultrahigh field MRI

Research group(s)

• Neuroimaging Methods
  Head: Simon Robinson
  Research Area: Developing methods for High Field (3T) and Ultra-High Field (7T) Susceptibility-Weighted Imaging, Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
  Current Members without linked pages:
  Michael Adam
  Peter Schneier
  Michele Steinrötter
  Matthias Dirneder
  Paul Klieber
  Members:
  David Bancelin
  Simon Robinson

Research interests

I work on the development of methods for ultra-high field (7 Tesla) MRI for clinical applications; primarily susceptibility imaging (SWI/QSM) using fast methods such as 3D-EPI and 2D simultaneous multi-slice echo-planar imaging, dynamic distortion and physiological noise correction methods for functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and a new approach to imaging substances with different chemical shifts (such as fat and water), called simultaneous multiple resonance frequency imaging, or SMURF. 

SWI and QSM use the phase of the MR signal to enhance the contrast in veins and to visualise structures which contain iron, calcium and myelin. My group has also developed a number of tools for processing phase data, such as ASPIRE and CLEAR-SWI, which are used at over half the ultra-high field sites worldwide. These have contributed to the improvement of these methods for 7T, where they provide us with exquisite representations of the distribution of biometals in the brain, and with it a means to investigate a wide range of neurological disorders. We have also developed methods for dynamically correcting distortions in fMRI at 7T and a novel method for simultaneous imaging of fat and water, which we are applying to mammography, musculo-skeletal imaging and QSM outside the brain. 

Techniques, methods & infrastructure

I work with the 7T and 3T MRI scanners at the High Field MR Centre at the Medical University of Vienna.

Selected publications

1. Robinson, S.D. et al. (2016) ‘An illustrated comparison of processing methods for MR phase imaging and QSM: combining array coil signals and phase unwrapping’, NMR in Biomedicine, 30(4), p. e3601. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/nbm.3601.
2. Eckstein, K. et al. (2017) ‘Computationally Efficient Combination of Multi-channel Phase Data From Multi-echo Acquisitions (ASPIRE)’, Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 79(6), pp. 2996–3006. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mrm.26963.
3. Dymerska, B. et al. (2018) ‘A method for the dynamic correction of B0-related distortions in single-echo EPI at 7 T’, NeuroImage, 168, pp. 321–331. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.07.009.
4. Bachrata, B. et al. (2020) ‘Simultaneous Multiple Resonance Frequency imaging (SMURF): Fat‐water imaging using multi‐band principles’, Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 85(3), pp. 1379–1396. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mrm.28519.
5. Eckstein, K. et al. (2021) ‘Improved susceptibility weighted imaging at ultra-high field using bipolar multi-echo acquisition and optimized image processing: CLEAR-SWI’, NeuroImage, 237, p. 118175. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118175.