ISMRM abstract announcement

This year's ISMRM abstract announcement came a week earlier than usual. In my count, about 143 x 36 = 5148 abstracts were accepted, as compared to 141 x 38= 5358 last year. I see submission numbers going beyond 8600 so the acceptance rate is perhaps about 60%, quite low compared to the past. The question of fairness and transparency naturally arises as more people get rejection -- prominently missing any explanation. When Dr. Derek Jones, now president of ISMRM, visited us last year I did ask about providing some kind of scores or justification for abstract decisions. He was under impression that rejected ones are of obvious low quality, and the question may be more on oral vs posters. I think this position needs re-visiting, as (i) the field is getting ever more diversified, making judgement of others' work difficult, and (ii) unlike APS, for example, ISMRM abstract submission requires considerable manual work (on formatting) so the rejected authors deserve some sort of feedback at the minimum.

Personally, two first-authored abstracts were accepted for digital posters as requested. They both involve eddy current. Video recording should happen in the next several weeks. More on that part later!

High performance neuroimaging conference in Boston

This was the second annual conference on MR neuroimaging and neuroscience enabled by high performance gradient coils. It followed the inaugural meeting at the GE Research center in December 2022, and was held in the Brigham and Women's hospital campus in Boston on Thursday 12/14, hosted by Prof. Carl-Fredrik (CF) Westin. Compared to the last one, the talks this year were more application-oriented than engineering, although there were interesting discussions on the comparison between GE's Magnus and Siemens' Connectome gradient coils. In particular, the current Connectome "2" user, Prof. S. Huang, gave a short talk on her team's experience with the new Siemens system. This helped make the conference take on a more vendor-neutral, academic forum-like atmosphere. Participants from all over the country and even outside (Lund university of Sweden), in addition to dozens (I think) of attendees from the local, BWH-Harvard medical school, appeared to reflect and echo a high level of community interest in high-performance* brain MRI. 

[*Note: High performance in this context means high-performance gradient coils, not necessarily dependent on static fields in excess of 3T. Both Magnus and Connectome gradient coils operate at 3T.]

Year-end party

At the intersection of academia (knowledge) and industry (accountability), 

Embodying diversity and integrity, 

Living impact and not just tallying it, 

Here is the GE Research MRI Lab, with candles lit! 

11.7T in Korea

 11.7T MRI magnet in Song-do, South Korea is at field! Prof. Kyoung-Nam Kim, who kindly provided a tour of the facility, says the field is stable, homogeneous, and the first NMR signal is expected any day. Given the long delay in progress at the French site, this Gacheon University scanner may not be much behind in the race for the first human image at this field. The magnet bore for this system is relatively small (60 cm before gradient)[Correction: 70cm is the magnet bore according to a 2025 publication], but human imaging is not out of the question if paired with an appropriate insert gradient coil.

DIANA debate in one figure

 This comparison figure from the Minnesota workshop says it all. On one side, Prof. Park (upper image) continues to break ground with new data, and moves DIANA forward with full sincerity, humility, and transparency of a mature scientist; while on the other side, the petty old man (not shown here) is on a negative campaign to undermine the other's credibility with not only malice and selfish intent but also cowardice of hiding behind big names (such as shown here, Dr. Bandettini). I know full well the intention of both sides. Apart from science, this battle cannot be won by the petty old man on a purely moral ground. 

Biennial ultrahigh-field MRI workshop in U. Minnesota

The workshop was held in a small auditorium/lecture room from Oct 12-14, with remote listen-in allowed for paid registrants. Remote attendance option in many such occasions is a notable positive change since the pandemic. The morning session of the second day covered MRI systems engineering, providing opportunity to hear about latest development or lack thereof from a few well-known speakers. My summary from the first 4 talks of the session is:

1. The French 11.74T system has identified resistive 3rd order shim coils coupling to the gradient coils as the primary source of image artifacts. They also found that other UHF MRI systems employing the same (Siemens SC72) gradient coil exhibited similar behavior. I am sure this will spur much discussion on the coupling issues, potentially exacerbated by vibration, between various non-RF coils in MRI.

2. Baby MRI researcher at 7T reported successful use of MR-based electrical properties tomography to estimate permittivity of infant brains.

3. Siemens's most powerful head-only gradient coils were apparently designed in Massachusetts General Hospital. The presenter incorrectly said that BEM is the industry standard method of gradient coil design. He also repeated what I think is a misleading statement that their design reduced PNS - peripheral nerve stimulation - in 4 out of 5 scan positions tested. The statement gives an impression that the 5 positions were selected randomly, while I believe they selected lowest-risk ones.

4. Brian Rutt continues to work with Minnesota team to provide a head-only gradient coil to fit inside a whole-body gradient coil that is in Minnesota's 10.5T scanner. He covered a broad range of topics including Comsol-based MGI simulation. He talked about an ultimate head gradient coil (reducing both PNS and MGI) as a work-in-progress.

The first day's schedule included Prof. Jang-Yeon Park's DIANA talk. I missed that one, but hope that the DIANA work will overcome a flurry of ego-driven criticisms (particularly instigated by one sore, petty old man) and be known for its true potential.

PS. The Workshop organizers kindly made recordings of presentations and Q&A available on-line until Nov. 9th. In the recording, Peter Bandettini was not being objective - he was politely but clearly siding with the petty man. It wasn't like him when he said "how can a higher-field be worse?", and when he repeatedly said a real signal will ALWAYS show up as number of averages goes up. It is unbelievable that a person with his expertise said something so obviously non-obvious so confidently. Fortunately two people from the audience brought these points up, and predictably he could not give a clear answer. Something is not right here. In a sense, I saw hope.

University of Wisconsin, Madison

University of Wisconsin-Madison is about to be the latest site to have the GE Magnus gradient system for 3T human brain imaging. As of now the scanner is being installed in the Waisman center which is home to UW Madison's developmental and neurodegenerative brain research. The Center, established in 1973, has just celebrated its 50th anniversary. Hopefully this latest brain imager developed by GE Research will help usher in another exciting half century of cutting-edge research at Waisman.

[PS] Tom Foo's LinkedIn page:

 https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7113495889494568961/