Wireless gating system for magnetic resonance imaging
AssigneeIvy Biomedical Systems, Inc.
InventorsJoseph Lane, Ryan Mcguire
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An example magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system uses magnetic fields and radio frequency waves to generate anatomical images of a biological organism, such as a human body, for example. The example MRI system can implement a prospective gating technique, such as cardiac gating and/or respiratory gating, to provide some examples, to improve the image quality of the anatomical images. The prospective gating technique utilizes one or more physiological events of the biological organism to trigger the example MRI system to image the biological organism at specific times to improve the image quality of the anatomical images, compensating example for interference that may be introduced by the magnetic fields and/or the radio frequency waves.
Claims18
A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system for generating an anatomical image of a patient, the MRI system comprising:
- an imaging machine configured to apply magnetic fields and radio frequency waves to a patient within the imaging machine to acquire an image data signal indicative of compositions of tissues within a spatial location of the patient;
- a gating signal transmitter configured to compensate for signal offsets and gradient pulse interference that are introduced onto a noisy physiological event signal relating to a physiological event of the patient by the magnetic fields and radio frequency waves, the gating signal transmitter comprising:
- a digital gradient offset filter configured to:
- evaluate an interference cost function based upon a plurality of characteristics of a first plurality of samples of the noisy physiological event signal that are accumulated during a time interference window to determine a plurality of weights for the first plurality of samples, and
- identify a second sample from among the first plurality of samples having a least weight from among the plurality of weights during the time interference window to compensate for the signal offsets, and
- a digital gradient rejection filter configured to perform a non-linear separation technique on a second plurality of samples of the noisy physiological event signal, having the second sample, that are identified over a plurality of time interference windows to provide a plurality of medians values of the second plurality of samples as a third plurality of samples of the noisy physiological event signal to compensate for the gradient pulse interference, and
- a control system configured to:
- trigger the imaging machine to acquire the image data signal based upon the third plurality of samples, and
- transform the image data signal into the anatomical image to graphically illustrate the compositions of the tissues within the spatial location of the patient.
A method for operating a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system, the method system comprising:
- applying, by the MRI system, magnetic fields and radio frequency waves to a patient within an imaging machine to acquire an image data signal indicative of compositions of tissues within a spatial location of the patient;
- generating, by the MRI system, a noisy physiological event signal that includes signal offsets and gradient pulse interference introduced onto a physiological event signal relating to a physiological event of the patient by the magnetic fields and radio frequency waves;
- evaluating, by the MRI system, an interference cost function based upon a plurality of characteristics of a first plurality of samples of the noisy physiological event signal accumulated during a time interference window to determine a plurality of weights for the first plurality of samples;
- identifying, by the MRI system, a second sample from among the first plurality of samples having a least weight from among the plurality of weights during the time interference window to compensate for the signal offsets;
- performing, by the MRI system, a non-linear separation technique on a second plurality of samples of the noisy physiological event signal, the second plurality of samples including the second sample and being identified over a plurality of time interference windows;
- generating, by the MRI system, a third plurality of samples comprising a plurality of median values of the second plurality of samples to compensate for the gradient pulse interference;
- triggering, by the MRI system, the imaging machine to acquire the image data signal based upon the third plurality of samples;
- and
- transforming, by the MRI system, the image data signal into an anatomical image that graphically illustrates the compositions of the tissues within the spatial location of the patient.
A gating signal transmitter for use with a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system to compensate for signal offsets and gradient pulse interference that are introduced onto a noisy physiological event signal relating to a physiological event of a patient, the gating signal transmitter comprising:
- a digital gradient offset filter configured to:
- evaluate an interference cost function based upon a plurality of characteristics of a first plurality of samples of that noisy physiological event signal that are accumulated during a time interference window to determine a plurality of weights for the first plurality of samples, and
- identify a second sample from among the first plurality of samples having a least weight from among the plurality of weights during the time interference window to compensate for the signal offsets;
- a digital gradient rejection filter configured to perform a non-linear separation technique on a second plurality of samples of the noisy physiological event signal, having the second sample, that are identified over a plurality of time interference windows to provide a plurality of medians values of the second plurality of samples as a third plurality of samples of the noisy physiological event signal to compensate for the gradient pulse interference;
- and
- a communications transmitter configured to provide the third plurality of samples to an imaging machine to acquire an image data signal based upon the third plurality of samples.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.