title: Numerical simulations of MREIT conductivity imaging for brain tumor detection.
abstract: Magnetic resonance electrical impedance tomography (MREIT) is a new modality capable of imaging the electrical properties of human body using MRI phase information in conjunction with external current injection. Recent in vivo animal and human MREIT studies have revealed unique conductivity contrasts related to different physiological and pathological conditions of tissues or organs. When performing in vivo brain imaging, small imaging currents must be injected so as not to stimulate peripheral nerves in the skin, while delivery of imaging currents to the brain is relatively small due to the skull's low conductivity. As a result, injected imaging currents may induce small phase signals and the overall low phase SNR in brain tissues. In this study, we present numerical simulation results of the use of head MREIT for brain tumor detection. We used a realistic three-dimensional head model to compute signal levels produced as a consequence of a predicted doubling of conductivity occurring within simulated tumorous brain tissues. We determined the feasibility of measuring these changes in a time acceptable to human subjects by adding realistic noise levels measured from a candidate 3 T system. We also reconstructed conductivity contrast images, showing that such conductivity differences can be both detected and imaged.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Impedance Imaging Research Center (IIRC), Kyung Hee University, Yongin, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Zi Jun
authors.initials: ZJ
authors.lastname: Meng
authors.forename: Saurav Z K
authors.initials: SZ
authors.lastname: Sajib
authors.forename: Munish
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chauhan
authors.forename: Rosalind J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Sadleir
authors.forename: Hyung Joong
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Oh In
authors.initials: OI
authors.lastname: Kwon
authors.forename: Eung Je
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Woo
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*; D019295:Computational Biology; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003936:Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017097:Electric Impedance; D020342:Finite Element Analysis; D006801:Humans; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008959:Models, Neurological; D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio