Friday, May 9, 2025 5/9/2025

Unified Shim-RF Coil Technology for Improved Whole-Brain Spectroscopic MRI for Neurological Disorders

Award Number: R01NS121544
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS AND STROKE
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

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Unified Shim-RF Coil Technology for Improved Whole-Brain Spectroscopic MRI for Neurological Disorders - Project Summary/Abstract Neurologic diseases affect as many as one billion people worldwide and are a major cause of disability and human suffering. Current standard of care imaging (contrast-enhanced MRI) is extremely limited to detect many neurological and neurodegenerative diseases. MR spectroscopic imaging (MRSI) has a great potential to supplement routine clinical MRI for clinical conditions including brain neoplasms, neonatal and pediatric disorders (hypoxia-ischemia, inherited metabolic diseases, and traumatic brain injury), demyelinating diseases, and infectious brain lesions. Gadolinium contrast agents have incomplete clearance, and repeated use of contrast-enhanced imaging has recently received an FDA warning due to brain accumulation. MRSI does not use contrast material and has no/minimal risk for patients. 3D encoded MRSI methods provide high sensitivity per unit time and unit volume. Presurgical and radiation treatment planning will greatly benefit from full 3D information, ideally with isotropic resolution. Echo-planar spectroscopic imaging (EPSI) based 3D whole-brain MRSI have been on most scanner platforms, and are probably the most commonly used fast MRSI techniques to date. The primary limitation of 3D MRSI has been magnetic B0 field inhomogeneity, which broadens lineshapes and diminishes spectral quality in about 40% of the brain (e.g., mesial temporal lobe, inferior frontal cortex, medial frontal gyrus, brainstem, and cerebellum). This limits the ability to evaluate critical brain regions such as mesial temporal lobe (MTL) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), which have pivotal roles across neurologic disorders. Recently, we introduced a radically novel concept called Unified Coil (UNIC), which includes innovative decoupling methods to bring the distance between separate shim and RF loops to zero millimeters. Both RF and shim coils are at a close proximity to the target organ for maximized RF SNR and shimming. Physical law implies that the only effective way to shim local inhomogeneous field (as in MTL/OFC) is by placing size-matched shim coils which generate opposite high-order field to counteract the inhomogeneous field. Our hypothesis is that UNIC will dramatically increase brain volume coverage and allow true metabolic evaluation of the entire brain using 3D MRSI. This will enable broader applications in patient management with various neurological disorders. The proposed study will prototype the first UNIC head coil (Aim 1), optimize the technique in shimming performance and hardware complexity (Aim 2), and assess the technique quantitatively in improving brain coverage of 3D MRSI (Aim 3). Successful completion of this study will largely resolve the longstanding B0 inhomogeneity issue in whole brain. Such coils can be widely used to benefit the entire MRSI community by advancing B0 shimming technology. It will help catalyze the widespread clinical acceptance of MRSI.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2025 ( Subtotal = $0 )
2025	2024	WEILL MEDICAL COLLEGE OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY	575 LEXINGTON AVE FL 9	NEW YORK	NY	10022	NEW YORK	USA	Extramural Research Programs in the Neurosciences and Neurological Disorders	000	4	3/20/2025	CHANGE OF GRANTEE / TRAINING INSTITUTION / AWARDING INSTITUTION	$0
														Subtotal = $0

Issue Date FY: 2024 ( Subtotal = $459,550 )
2024	2024	WEILL MEDICAL COLLEGE OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY	575 LEXINGTON AVE FL 9	NEW YORK	NY	10022	NEW YORK	USA	Extramural Research Programs in the Neurosciences and Neurological Disorders	003	4	6/18/2024	CHANGE OF GRANTEE / TRAINING INSTITUTION / AWARDING INSTITUTION	$446,898
2024	2024	WEILL MEDICAL COLLEGE OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY	575 LEXINGTON AVE FL 9	NEW YORK	NY	10022	NEW YORK	USA	Extramural Research Programs in the Neurosciences and Neurological Disorders	001	4	5/23/2024	CHANGE OF GRANTEE / TRAINING INSTITUTION / AWARDING INSTITUTION	$459,550
2024	2023	CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER	8700 BEVERLY BLVD	WEST HOLLYWOOD	CA	90048	LOS ANGELES	USA	Extramural Research Programs in the Neurosciences and Neurological Disorders	002	3	6/18/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	-$446,898
2024	2023	CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER	8700 BEVERLY BLVD	WEST HOLLYWOOD	CA	90048	LOS ANGELES	USA	Extramural Research Programs in the Neurosciences and Neurological Disorders	000	3	5/23/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$0
														Subtotal = $459,550

Issue Date FY: 2023 ( Subtotal = $473,523 )
2023	2023	CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER	8700 BEVERLY BLVD	WEST HOLLYWOOD	CA	90048	LOS ANGELES	USA	Extramural Research Programs in the Neurosciences and Neurological Disorders	000	3	3/17/2023	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$473,523
														Subtotal = $473,523

Issue Date FY: 2022 ( Subtotal = $465,256 )
2022	2022	CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER	8700 BEVERLY BLVD	LOS ANGELES	CA	90048	LOS ANGELES	USA	Extramural Research Programs in the Neurosciences and Neurological Disorders	000	2	4/5/2022	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$465,256
														Subtotal = $465,256

Issue Date FY: 2021 ( Subtotal = $479,251 )
2021	2021	CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER	8700 BEVERLY BLVD	LOS ANGELES	CA	90048	LOS ANGELES	USA	Extramural Research Programs in the Neurosciences and Neurological Disorders	000	1	3/17/2021	NEW	$479,251
2021	2021	CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER	8700 BEVERLY BLVD	LOS ANGELES	CA	90048	LOS ANGELES	USA	Extramural Research Programs in the Neurosciences and Neurological Disorders	001	1	5/10/2021	NEW	$0
														Subtotal = $479,251

Grand Total All Awards = $1,877,580

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Unified Shim-RF Coil Technology for Improved Whole-Brain Spectroscopic MRI for Neurological Disorders

Award Number: R01NS121544

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS AND STROKE

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

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