High Resolution Diffusion MRI of the Human Brain – Christian Beaulieu

Location: Enter from the Elm Street entrance and take the stairs on the left hand side to the second floor.

Speaker

Christian Beaulieu

Professor of Radiology and Diagnostic Imaging & Biomedical Engineering, University of Alberta
Scientific Director of Peter S Allen MRI Research Centre
Canada Research Chair

Abstract

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has made major advances for the non-invasive study of the human body in unprecedented ways that has led to improvements in disease diagnosis and yielded fundamental insights about the human body and disease. At a glance, MRI appears to possess only gross anatomical information at coarse resolution, but the image contrast generated is due to the interactions of water (the molecule typically being measured in MRI) with its local tissue micro-environment at the level of the cells. This talk will focus on one type of MRI contrast and one core organ, namely diffusion MRI of the human brain which will be shown to benefit greatly from the acquisition of high spatial resolution images. The emphasis will be on diffusion imaging of the hippocampus and cortex, which are small, complex, critical regions for brain function, and how they change with typical ‘healthy’ development and aging over the lifespan as well as what insight is provided in neurological disorders such as epilepsy, stroke, and multiple sclerosis.

Bio: Dr. Christian Beaulieu is a Professor of Radiology and Diagnostic Imaging & Biomedical Engineering at the University of Alberta (where he has been for 24 years), Scientific Director of the Peter S Allen MRI Research Centre, and a Canada Research Chair. His background includes a BSc in Physical Chemistry at the University of Manitoba, PhD in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Alberta, and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Lucas MRI Centre in Radiology at Stanford University. His research expertise lies in the development of new quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) methods, mainly diffusion and sodium MRI, and their application to better detect differences of the human brain in individuals with typical development/aging across the lifespan and with neurological (e.g. stroke, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis) or neurodevelopment (e.g. fetal alcohol spectrum disorders) disorders

Host

Hai-Ling Margaret Cheng