Schote David, Silemek Berk, O'Reilly Thomas, Seifert Frank, Assmy Jan-Lukas, Kolbitsch Christoph, Webb Andrew G, Winter Lukas
Department 8.1 - Biomedical Magnetic Resonance, Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Braunschweig and Berlin, Germany.
Department of Radiology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, Netherlands.
Magn Reson Med. 2025 May;93(5):2224-2238. doi: 10.1002/mrm.30406. Epub 2025 Jan 27.
To develop a low-cost, high-performance, versatile, open-source console for low-field MRI applications that can integrate a multitude of different auxiliary sensors.
A new MR console was realized with four transmission and eight reception channels. The interface cards for signal transmission and reception are installed in PCI Express slots, allowing console integration in a commercial PC rack. Following standards developed by the MRI community, we implemented an open-source console software package with native Pulseq and ISMRM raw data support. It is implemented in Python to allow easy customization and provide the flexible use of a freely configurable number of transmit and receive channels. We benchmarked the system by comparing the imaging quality with a state-of-the-art reference system. Different examples of how auxiliary sensors, connected via additional channels, can improve imaging are demonstrated.
Using a three-dimensional turbo spin-echo sequence, image quality of proton density-weighted and T-weighted images in the brain of a healthy volunteer obtained by the proposed Nexus console matches closely to a commonly applied commercial system. The use of additional receive channels was demonstrated for system monitoring (radiofrequency pulses and gradient currents), electromagnetic interference detection, and temperature and B field monitoring. Based on these measurements, system calibrations and electromagnetic interference-mitigation techniques were applied to improve image quality.
Our console offers high versatility in terms of data acquisition, is freely configurable, adheres to open-source data standards, and is easy to customize. It yields a similar image quality compared with a commercially available reference system yet is substantially lower cost and open source.
开发一种低成本、高性能、多功能的开源控制台，用于低场MRI应用，该控制台可集成多种不同的辅助传感器。
实现了一个具有四个发射通道和八个接收通道的新型MR控制台。信号发射和接收的接口卡安装在PCI Express插槽中，可将控制台集成到商用PC机架中。遵循MRI社区制定的标准，我们实现了一个具有原生Pulseq和ISMRM原始数据支持的开源控制台软件包。它用Python实现，便于定制，并能灵活使用可自由配置数量的发射和接收通道。我们通过将成像质量与最先进的参考系统进行比较来对该系统进行基准测试。展示了通过额外通道连接的辅助传感器如何改善成像的不同示例。
使用三维快速自旋回波序列，所提出的Nexus控制台在健康志愿者大脑中获得的质子密度加权图像和T加权图像的图像质量与常用的商业系统非常匹配。展示了使用额外的接收通道进行系统监测（射频脉冲和梯度电流）、电磁干扰检测以及温度和B场监测。基于这些测量结果，应用了系统校准和电磁干扰缓解技术来提高图像质量。
我们的控制台在数据采集方面具有高度的通用性，可自由配置，遵循开源数据标准，并且易于定制。与市售参考系统相比，它产生的图像质量相似，但成本大幅降低且是开源的。
