University of Minnesota

Life Services, LLC

Mr Instruments, Inc.

Other

The General Hospital Corporation

John Thomas Vaughan

Charles A Lemaire

Carl J Snyder

Matthew T Waks

Kamil Ugurbil

Scott M Schillak

Anand Gopinath

William Charles Neely

Lance DelaBarre

Bruce J Rader

Gregory F Molnar

Steen Moeller

Emad S Ebbini

Gregor Adriany

Pierre-Francois Van De Moortele

Matthew D Johnson

Shalom Michaeli

Silvia Mangia

Can E Akgun

Lauri Lehto

Julia Slopsema

Olli Gröhn

Sung-Min Sohn

Mark A Watson

Kenneth M Bradshaw

Joshua J Holwell

Systems and methods are provided for neuromodulation with simultaneous stimulation and reception of neuronal response. A closed-loop control system provides the ability to modulate any combination of at least five parameters of stimulation (magnitude, frequency, amplitude, time, and phase) based on any combination of at least five parameters of received signals. The neuromodulation is well-suited for deep brain stimulation (DBS) applications.

System and method for feedback-driven neuromodulation

Apparatus and method that are more efficient and flexible, and obtain and connect high-power RF transmit signals (TX) to RF-coil devices in an MR machine or other devices and simultaneously receive signals (RX) and separate net receive signals NRX) of interest by subtracting or filtering to remove the subtractable portion of the transmit signal (STX) from the RX and preamplifying the NRX and signal processing the preamplified NRX. In some embodiments, signal processing further removes artifacts of the transmitted signal, e.g., by digitizing the NRX signal, storing the digitized NRX signal in a memory, and performing digital signal processing. In some embodiments, the present invention also includes pre-distorting the TX signals in order to be better able to identify and/or remove the remaining artifacts of the transmitted signal from the NRX signal. This solution also applies to other high-power RF-transmit-antennae signals.

Simultaneous TX-RX for antenna devices

Apparatus and method that includes amplifiers for transceiver antenna elements, and more specifically to power amplifying an RF (radio frequency) signal using a distributed power amplifier having electronic devices (such as field-effect transistors) that are thermally and/or mechanically connected to each one of a plurality of antenna elements (also called coil elements) to form a hybrid coil-amplifier (e.g., for use in a magnetic-resonance (MR) imaging or spectroscopy machine), and that is optionally adjusted from a remote location, optionally including remotely adjusting its gains, electrical resistances, inductances, and/or capacitances (which controls the magnitude, phase, frequency, spatial profile, and temporal profile of the RF signal)&#x2014;and, in some embodiments, the components are compatible with, and function in, high fields (such as a magnetic field of up to and exceeding one tesla or even ten tesla or more and/or an electric field of many thousands of volts per meter).

Active transmit elements for MRI coils and other antenna devices, and method

Apparatus and method that includes providing a variable-parameter electrical component in a high-field environment and based on an electrical signal, automatically moving a movable portion of the electrical component in relation to another portion of the electrical component to vary at least one of its parameters. In some embodiments, the moving uses a mechanical movement device (e.g., a linear positioner, rotary motor, or pump). In some embodiments of the method, the electrical component has a variable inductance, capacitance, and/or resistance. Some embodiments include using a computer that controls the moving of the movable portion of the electrical component in order to vary an electrical parameter of the electrical component. Some embodiments include using a feedback signal to provide feedback control in order to adjust and/or maintain the electrical parameter. Some embodiments include a non-magnetic positioner connected to an electrical component configured to have its RLC parameters varied by the positioner.

Method and remotely adjustable reactive and resistive electrical elements

A system and method for automatically adjusting electrical performance of a radio frequency (RF) coil assembly of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system during a medical imaging process of a subject to control changes in loading conditions of the RF coil caused by the subject during the medical imaging process.

System and method for control of RF circuits for use with an MRI system

Systems and methods for beamforming algorithms for transmit-receive parallel magnetic resonance imaging ('pMRI') applications are described. For any transmit configuration (e.g., using a single or multiple transmit elements) a weighted sum of the complex image data from each receiver is formed with a spatially-varying weighting. The weighting factor is obtained by solving an optimal refocusing problem at a set of points in the image space, which can include all the pixels in the image. The optimal refocusing of the transmit-receive configuration accounts for the spatially-varying SNR in deriving the coefficients of the weighted sum at every image pixel.

System and method for parallel magnetic resonance image reconstruction using digital beamforming

Simultaneous TX-RX for MRI systems and other antenna devices

Apparatus and method for optimizing different amounts of output products derived from an initial biomass material. The method includes obtaining economic data of costs and availability of raw materials and resources, and prices that would be paid for output products derived, performing calculations to determine an optimum amount of each of the output products; and controlling processes that generate the output products. In some embodiments, the processes convert initial biomass materials into intermediate and output products, an economic engine that obtains economic data relating to costs of initial materials and prices that would be paid for output products derived from the raw materials, and performs calculations to determine an optimum amount of each of the output products, and valves that are controlled by the economic engine to route variable amounts of the initial biomass materials to the processes to obtain a mix of output products that provides an optimum profit.

Method and apparatus for processing agricultural materials and changing the proportions of output materials

A progressive series of five new coils is described. The first coil solves problems of transmit-field inefficiency and inhomogeneity for heart and body imaging, with a close-fitting, 16-channel TEM conformal array design with efficient shield-capacitance decoupling. The second coil progresses directly from the first with automatic tuning and matching, an innovation of huge importance for multi-channel transmit coils. The third coil combines the second, auto-tuned multi-channel transmitter with a 32-channel receiver for best transmit-efficiency, control, receive-sensitivity and parallel-imaging performance. The final two coils extend the innovative technology of the first three coils to multi-nuclear (P-H) designs to make practical human-cardiac imaging and spectroscopy possible for the first time at 7 T.

Method and coils for human whole-body imaging at 7 T

Active transmit elements for MRI coils and other antenna devices

Remotely adjustable reactive and resistive electrical elements and method

In one illustrative embodiment, a radio frequency (RF) coil is disclosed. The RF coil may include a plurality of transmission line elements, wherein at least one of the plurality of transmission line elements may have at least one dimension different than a dimension of another one of the plurality of transmission line elements. In some cases, each of the transmission line elements may include a signal line conductor and a ground plane conductor separated by a dielectric.

Three dimensional RF coil structures for field profiling

Apparatus and method for processing agricultural materials and changing the proportions of output materials

An magnetic resonance apparatus in embodiments of the invention may include one or more of the following features: (a) a coil having at least two sections, (b) the at least two sections having a resonant circuit, (c) the at least two sections being reactively coupled or decoupled, (d) the at least two sections being separable, (e) the coil having openings allowing a subject to see or hear and to be accessed through the coil, (f) a cushioned head restraint, and (g) a subject input/output device providing visual data to the subject, the input/output device being selected from the group consisting of mirrors, prisms, video monitors, LCD devices, and optical motion trackers.

Cavity resonator for magnetic resonance systems

Growing community of inventors

Stillwater, MN, United States of America

John Thomas Vaughan