Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) devices can scan the inside of the body in intricate detail, but they can be a long and uncomfortable experience for patients. Now this scan time could be cut to just 15 minutes, thanks to an algorithm developed at MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics.
MRI machines typically acquire a variety of images of the same body part, each designed to create a contrast between different types of tissue. By comparing multiple images of the same region, radiologists can detect subtle abnormalities such as a developing tumor. But taking multiple scans of the same region in this way is time-consuming, meaning patients must spend long periods inside the machine.
The MIT algorithm dramatically speeds up this process. The algorithm uses information gained from the first contrast scan to help it produce the subsequent images. In this way, the scanner does not have to start from scratch each time it produces a different image from the raw data, but already has a basic outline to work from, considerably shortening the time it takes to acquire each later scan.
The software looks for features that are common to all the different scans, such as the basic anatomical structure. In particular, the algorithm uses the first scan to predict the likely position of the boundaries between different types of tissue in the subsequent contrast scans. Given the data from one contrast, it gives a certain likelihood that a particular edge will be in the same place. The result is an MRI scan that is three times quicker to complete, cutting the time patients spend in the machine from 45 to 15 minutes.
