aMRI – Mātai Medical Research Institute

Amplified MRI (aMRI)

Amplified magnetic resonance imaging (aMRI), a promising image processing tool developed by Mātai’s scientists and collaborators. aMRI visualises brain motion as the heart beats and shows the movement of the brain in ways that have never been seen before.

The brain is influenced by the motion of the heart. Brain motion, invisible to the naked eye, can be picked up using a novel technique called amplified MRI (aMRI).

aMRI is a quick, non-invasive MRI method that holds promise for diagnosing disorders of the brain which result in altered brain motion. Diseases that raise the intracranial pressure, or those that alter the morphometry of the brain – such as idiopathic intracranial hypertension, hydrocephalous, and Chiari I malformation – are thought to alter the brain motion. aMRI is expected to also have applications to many disease states that affect brain tissue viability, such as neurodegenerative disease and traumatic brain injury. It also has applications to aneurysms as shown in the work by Pionteck et al. (2022) which shows that aneurysm wall motion predicted stability.

Looking for multi-site clinical evaluations

The team behind Amplified Magnetic Resonance Imaging (aMRI) is actively seeking clinical sites for multi-site evaluations. We would like to collaborate with you to understanding ground truth/ consistency of the technique/ clinical need / input on interpretation.

If you are interested in applying this technology in your clinical or research setting, you can reach out to the team at the provided email address below.

For GE Systems:

Mātai is collaborating alongside GE Healthcare to streamline aMRI workflow and is looking for multi-site evaluation of aMRI. aMRI is available as a installable patch that can be shared if a participating GE site holds a license sharing agreement with GEHC. Please make sure you are listed on the MR Software Sharing Member List.

If you are a GE research collaborations site, aMRI can integrate into your researcher/ radiologist workflow. The aMRI package can be installed on GE scanner versions RX28 and RX29, and a protocol sheet with recommended settings is available. Images are sent back to the scanner after processing. It is recommended that Mātai process the first case for your site to ensure the method is running smoothly. A data sharing agreement will be required.

Contact the team at Haribalan.Kumar@ge.com or s.holdsworth@matai.org.nz.

For Siemens & Philips systems:

This currently requires offline processing. Please contact us for more information at s.holdsworth@matai.org.nz.

World’s first demonstration of exquisite cardiac-induced brain motion in-vivo using amplified MRI developed by Mātai’s scientists and collaborators.

The aMRI video here shows a normal 5 year old patient, and a 5 year old with Chiari I malformation with increased mid-brain, spinal cord, and frontal lobe motion.

Introducing our Amplified MRI research package. We are currently seeking MRI research sites worldwide that utilise GE scanners to participate in testing our cutting-edge amplified MRI (aMRI) package.

Learn more

Contact Dr Haribalan Kumar

References:

Holdsworth SJ, Ni W, Zaharchuk G, Salmani Rahimi M, Moseley M. Amplified Magnetic Resonance Imaging (aMRI), Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. 2016;75(6):2245-2254.

Terem I, Ni W, Goubran M, Salmani Rahimi M, Zaharchuk G, Yeom K, Moseley M, Kurt M, Holdsworth SJ. Revealing sub-voxel motions of brain tissue using phase-based amplified MRI (aMRI), Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. 2018;79(4):2071-2080.

Terem I, Dang L, Champagne A, Abderezaei J, Pionteck A, Almadan Z, Lydon AM, Kurt M, Scadeng M, Holdsworth SJ. 3D amplified MRI (aMRI), Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. 2021;86(3):1674-1686.

Abderezaei J, Pionteck A, Terem I, Dang L, Scadeng M, Morgenstern P, Shrivastava R, Holdsworth SJ, Yang Y, Kurt M. Development, calibration, and testing of 3D amplified MRI (aMRI) for the quantification of intrinsic brain motion. Brain Multiphysics. 2021;2:100022.

Abderezaei J, Pionteck A, Chuang YC, Carrasquilla A, Bilgili G, Lu TA, Terem I, Scadeng M, Fillingham P, Morgenstern P, Levitt M, Ellenbogen RG, Yang Y, Holdsworth SJ, Shrivastava R, Kurt M. Increased Hindbrain Motion in Chiari Malformation I Patients Measured Through 3D Amplified MRI (3D aMRI), medRxiv. 2022:2022-10.

Champagne AA, Peponoulas E, Terem I, Ross A, Tayebi M, Chen Y, Coverdale NS, Nielsen PM, Wang A, Shim V, Holdsworth SJ, Cook D. Novel strain analysis informs about injury susceptibility of the corpus callosum to repeated impacts, Brain Communications. 2019;1(1):fcz021.

Pionteck A, Abderezaei J, Fillingham P, Chuang YC, Sakai Y, Belani P, Rigney B, De Leacy R, Fifi J, Chien A, Villablanca P, Colby G, Jahan R, Duckwiler G, Sayre J, Holdsworth S, Levitt M, Mocco J, Kurt M, Nael K. Intracranial aneurysm wall displacement predicts instability, medRxiv. 2022:2022-06.

Kumar H, Terem I, Kurt M, Kwon E, Holdsworth SJ. Amplified MRI and physiological brain tissue motion. Advances in Magnetic Resonance Technology and Applications. 2023;6:449-459.