# Acquisition technology for in vivo functional and structural MR imaging at the mesoscopic scale.

> **NIH NIH P41** · MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL · 2020 · $261,678

## Abstract

Significant strides have been made in microscopic brain imaging of animal models and ex vivo samples, led by
advances in optical microscopy and new tools for manipulation of neural circuitry and targeted stimulation;
enabling us to gain new insights into neuronal cells and circuits functions at this fine scale. Concurrent to these
developments, in vivo non-invasive human brain imaging, particularly through MRI, has also undergone
significant advancement. This has allowed it to collect rich functional and structural information at the macroscale
quickly, and also aid in its push towards higher spatial resolution, where imaging at the mesoscopic scale is
starting to become feasible. Nonetheless, critical barriers remain in achieving adequate specificity and sensitivity
at this scale. The ability to image more precisely at the mesoscale both structurally and functionally with MRI will
play a critical role to bridge the gap and transfer our improved understanding at the microscale with animal and
ex vivo studies to macroscale human imaging that are performed in large scale studies and in clinical settings.
This project will create a program for MR technology development to overcome current “encoding limits” in MRI
to achieve in vivo imaging at the mesoscopic scale: diffusion, functional, and structural imaging of the human
brain at the 400–600 µm isotropic voxel size with high sensitivity and high spatial accuracy. This will push in
vivo MRI from the macro-scale toward the meso-scale of cerebral cortical columns and layers and subcortical
nuclei to transfer new insights from invasive animal and post mortem micro-scale imaging to non-invasive
human imaging. Because fundamental modules of brain organization can be observed in the meso-scale
architecture, this project will allow for in vivo investigation at relevant spatial scales with sufficient coverage.
We will undertake a synergistic ‘from-the-ground-up’ development that combines novel encoding and
reconstruction strategies with newly-available instrumentation to achieve high imaging fidelity and sensitivity at
the target resolution. SNR-efficient volumetric and continuous acquisitions along with highly-accelerated
spatio-temporal controlled-aliasing encoding will be developed. New approaches to image encoding will be
created that utilize a recently-introduced combined RF and B0 shim-array technology, not only for its original
intended purpose of reducing B0 inhomogeneity, but also to complement conventional encoding schemes to
increase acceleration performance, improve robustness, and achieve large artifacts mitigation, particularly for
multi-shot EPI. Synergistic reconstruction schemes will also be developed using emerging concepts in low-rank
and multi-dimensional sub-space modeling combined with powerful Machine Learning (ML) algorithms. The
proposed time-resolved reconstruction of both functional and structural data will provide a new, rich imaging
dataset with hundreds of TEs and TIs from a si...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10038180
- **Project number:** 1P41EB030006-01
- **Recipient organization:** MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** Kawin Setsompop
- **Activity code:** P41 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $261,678
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-08-01 → 2025-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10038180

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10038180, Acquisition technology for in vivo functional and structural MR imaging at the mesoscopic scale. (1P41EB030006-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10038180. Licensed CC0.

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