COST B21: Physiological Modelling of MR Image Formation

Researchers

  • Sven Loncaric
  • Marko Subasic
  • Tomislav Petkovic

Institutions

Please visit the project web site for a complete list of members.

Project duration

The project duration was from 2003-2008.

Funding agency

EU COST program.

Short description

Since its introduction in the mid eighties, the growth in the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in medicine has been spectacular to the present position where it is widely used throughout the USA, Europe and Japan as a primary diagnostic imaging modality.  Indeed, Young (1990) has hailed MRI as 'possibly the most powerful in-vivo diagnostic tool yet discovered' with 'the single most exciting thing about it being its scope'.  There is considerable opportunity for further advances in utilisation and efficacy through making full use of all the quantitative image information available in MRI experiments and this Action seeks to take advantage of these possibilities, drawing together this data in order to interpret tissue structure and physiology in a totally original way as described on page 3.
Current biomedical research (like drug development, genomics or the investigation of the mechanism of many natural and pathological processes such as ageing, cancer or  multiple sclerosis), and clinical diagnosis depend more and more strongly on the availability of in-vivo information about local morphology or physiological processes on the cellular level.  During the last few years, the development of cellular imaging techniques has introduced the possibility of overcoming some of the underlying problems and establishing new innovative ways of gaining insight into the functioning of living organisms.
The Action will draw on the significant progress made during COST Action B11 ‘Quantitation of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Texture’, extending and developing the work into the fundamental issue of linking NMR and MRI measurements and other complementary image information with tissue structure and function.  It also seeks to take full advantage of the effectiveness of the exceptionally strong working partnership developed during B11.  

For more information visit the COST B21 project web portal.