The objective of the """"""""International Workshop on MRI Phase Contrast and Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping (QSM)"""""""" is to provide a forum for researchers and clinicians interested in MRI signal phase and QSM. Magnetic susceptibility is a physical property that reflects how a substance changes the magnetic field. Magnetic susceptibility of tissue has recently been shown to be affected by organ function, disease state, and intervention. Until very recently, susceptibility has been primarily treated as a source of image artifacts and has not been systematically explored as tissue contrast in MRI. Several recent breakthroughs in reconstructing tissue phase and susceptibility have started to change the status quo. For example, phase contrast has revealed unprecedented spatial details of brain anatomy in vivo. QSM is enabling noninvasive and in vivo measurements of oxygen saturation and iron deposition in stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, and other neurological disorders and diseases. Further, QSM offers a new contrast mechanism for studying properties of nerve bundles including myelination and fiber tract orientation. Following these findings, there has been an exploding interest in phase and QSM from the MRI, diagnostic Radiology and Neuroscience communities. Given this rapid growth, there is a pressing need to facilitate the education and dissemination of knowledge and conduct a dialogue of unmet needs and future directions. We plan to meet this demand through the following three specific aims: 1) to bring together scientists from varied backgrounds including physics, engineering, biology and medicine to promote cross-fertilization of ideas on technical developments and clinical applications and to identify and emphasize the methodologies that bear the potential to innovate QSM technology and its future clinical uses;2) to foster collaborative relationships among researchers from multi-centers to critically evaluate existing phase and QSM technology and assess unresolved issues and unmet needs;3) to educate young scientists (trainees and junior investigators) and scientists from different backgrounds on the fundamentals and state-of-the-art of MRI phase and QSM technology. The proposed QSM workshop will facilitate the education, innovation and translational applications of an emerging medical imaging technology.
This proposed International Workshop on MRI Phase Contrast and Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping (QSM) will facilitate the education, innovation and clinical applications of an emerging medical imaging technology.
| Liu, Chunlei; Li, Wei; Tong, Karen A et al. (2015) Susceptibility-weighted imaging and quantitative susceptibility mapping in the brain. J Magn Reson Imaging 42:23-41 |
