Advanced control of head motion and specific absorption rate to leverage the potential of 7 Tesla MRI for pediatric neuroimaging – MOSAR

MRI has become an essential tool in the diagnosis of brain diseases, yet, faint or localized tissue alteration (lesions) can remain invisible, even with state of the art 3T MRI machines. The three-fold increase in signal to noise ratio offered by 7T MRI machines is an asset to surpass the image resolution of 3T, and ultimately improve diagnosis in various diseases, and for all patient populations. Our project, called MOSAR, will contribute to leverage this asset for the pediatric population by tackling 1) the motion sensitivity issues with MRI, 2) the higher specific absorption rate (SAR) and RF field heterogeneity at 7T, both limiting image quality. One objective of MOSAR will be, eventually, to validate 7 Tesla MRI as a tool for the diagnosis of pharmaco-resistant focal epilepsy in children. This project will associate 3 laboratories providing together expertise in RF coil design, RF simulation, MRI physics, motion-aware image reconstruction, and pediatric neuroimaging.