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A low-cost and shielding-free ultra-low-field brain MRI scanner
- walterbell 5y agoCode/data for replication: https://github.com/bispmri/Ultra-low-field-MRI-Scanner https://github.com/bispmri/Ultra-low-field-MRI-Scanner
- phkahler 5y agoSome of the code is Matlab. I wonder if GNU octave is sufficient to run it. That would be a big savings for studying this.
- neuronexmachina 5y agoThe only Matlab file seems to just be be ~30 lines of code for reading HDF5 files and plotting some results, nothing too complicated or critical: https://github.com/bispmri/Ultra-low-field-MRI-Scanner/blob/main/Deep%20Learning%20based%20EMI%20Elimination%20Codes%20and%20Data/DisplayResults.m https://github.com/bispmri/Ultra-low-field-MRI-Scanner/blob/... It looks like the bulk of the code for training the EMI elimination model is is pretty straightforward PyTorch.
- keewee7 5y agoI am surprised that there isn't open source alternatives to Simulink, Stateflow etc. One reason Matlab is popular in academia and industry is because someone who don't know C/C++ (mechanical engineers etc.) can use something like Simulink to program real-time systems on microcontrollers and FPGAs.
- IshKebab 5y agoThere is Xcos, but IIRC it's pretty poor compared to Simulink. Honestly Simulink is super niche. I'd guess there are 10 times more MATLAB users than Simulink users. Not surprising there aren't many alternatives. I think a bigger reason MATLAB is popular is that it works really reliably, it is very well documented, it has a ton of complex algorithms and functions built in (or available in toolkits at least) and the interactive GUI works very well. There isn't anything anywhere that comes close to MATLAB's plotting abilities. And scientists do a hell of a lot of plotting.
- mrfusion 5y agoCould this be an alternative to Elon’s neural link? Is it wearable?
- dimi_chip 5y agoWhat is the SNR they are getting ? Can't seem to find this info in the paper. I am also working on a low-field MRi prototype, but at a much lower field (1mT) and using SQUID-based detection. This approach, in theory, allows to have much better T1 contrast, which is an issue raised in this paper. Also, at these levels of field you can use a low-consumption resistive magnet which permits much better field homogeneity. Anyway the results this team is getting are very impressive and gives me hope that portable MRI is not science fiction. Would love to see some clinical diagnosis data with a bigger sample and more doctors. Will definitely try out their EMI cancellation algorithm on my experiment !
- SubiculumCode 5y agoThis is cool. Don't get me wrong. You could build this in your garage maybe. But those scans are useless for what I do in my research. The resolution and contrast it provides are just too low. Edit: for neuroscience research..I hadn't considered any clinical utility.
- lostlogin 5y agoThe images are better that I expected. The ‘FLAIR like’ image is not particularly FLAIR like. FLAIR are nicer to look at when fat saturated (not everyone agrees with that), but that’s probably not feasible at that field strength and adding scan time would be a problem on these long sequences. Voxel sizes of 2x2x10 are pretty terrible resolution, but if the alternative is nothing, I guess that’s ok. The static field is so low, I’m impressed it works at all.
- TheJoeMan 5y agoYou know, sometimes all you need is “do I have a baseball sized tumor or not”.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoBut if the answer is "yes", the next question is "do I also have pinhead-sized metastases, and if so, where?"
- littlestymaar 5y agoIsn't this question answered by a PET scan and not MRI ?
- lostlogin 5y agoI am unsure of the exact state of play but believe that small mets (eg a few mm in size) are better seen with MRI. MR is probably easier to get than PET too. There are usually a few radiologists lurking here and they would have better knowledge than me (I’m an MR tech). https://appliedradiology.com/articles/diagnosing-brain-metastases-mri-still-better-than-pet-mri-in-nsclc-patients https://appliedradiology.com/articles/diagnosing-brain-metas...
- doctoring 5y agoUsually not! PET scans are limited in resolution when you get down to the sub-5 mm or so range due to scanner technology and fundamental limits of the physics of positron/electron annihilation & photon emission. A typical MRI (i.e. alas, not what this article is describing) can usually resolve something at that size and identify characteristics like diffusion restriction or contrast enhancement which can confirm metastasis. Also, in the brain, PET scans (at least the most common, FDG, which is based on glucose) are extremely limited in utility because of the baseline high glucose metabolism of the brain, which makes it hard to distinguish from the metabolic activity of a tumor.
- a-dub 5y agowoah. woah. woah. hold on a second here... are we comfortable enough with understanding all of the behavior of deep learning models to where we can confidently put them in the pipeline for diagnostic clinical imaging? i'm okay with using them for image analysis, but denoising and other image production tasks seems dangerous. how do you know what you're looking at is real as opposed to something that just looks convincing? (like deep neural nets are famous for producing)
- phkahler 5y agoI'm kind of thinking the opposite. Image analysis is where you don't want AI. Noise removal is further upstream (I'm assuming) and if it fails wouldn't it cause significant artifacts (blur for example) in the images? It would be helpful to see results with and without this correction, or even with varying degrees of it.
- thfuran 5y agoWhat's the worst that could happen? https://www.dkriesel.com/en/blog/2013/0802_xerox-workcentres_are_switching_written_numbers_when_scanning https://www.dkriesel.com/en/blog/2013/0802_xerox-workcentres...
- iancmceachern 5y agoYes. This is past tense, other companies are already doing this, in the clinic.
- lostlogin 5y agoA link: https://www.siemens-healthineers.com/magnetic-resonance-imaging/technologies-and-innovations/deep-resolve https://www.siemens-healthineers.com/magnetic-resonance-imag...
- MauranKilom 5y agoAgreed, but I believe "using AI for inference from sparse observations" is unfortunately a thing already.
- omarhaneef 5y agoDon't they already have something like this in the field? https://hyperfine.io https://hyperfine.io
- wforfang 5y agoThis exact product is mentioned in the article as evidence for clinical/market demand. It also shows precedence for FDA approval of a pretty similar instrument for clinical diagnostics. Although, its interesting to note that the hyperfine MRI (at least ostensibly) seems to do the same thing in a smaller/more portable form factor.
- omarhaneef 5y agoI missed it, but I guess my underlying question remains: what is the innovation over previous attempts that gets the paper into nature?
- rexreed 5y agoSo you're saying we have sufficient trust in the same sort of NN technology that confuses 8's and 0's in OCR text will be used to impute image data which might or might not exist? Sure, NN's are great at "filling in the gaps" and colorizing pictures based on what might be assumed, but when accuracy matters, does this approach truly work? EDIT: I just want to point out that the original subject title of the post on HN was "A low-cost and shielding-free ultra-low-field brain MRI scanner Using AI" ... and the Using AI part of the post title was subsequently removed.
- tshaddox 5y agoDo you have any data on the reliability of OCR systems used in production? I don’t have any such data, but given that the USPS was using OCR to sort mail over 50 years ago I would be surprised if these systems aren’t incredibly accurate.
- rexreed 5y agoFrom: https://research.aimultiple.com/ocr-technology/ https://research.aimultiple.com/ocr-technology/ "There are still no OCR tools that work at human level in most applications" and also from my personal experience working with this technology every day. There are many more mistakes in OCR even with printed material than might be expected. There is a major problem with Xerox Scanners and the 8's and 0's issue I reference.
- isoprophlex 5y agoSee other comments. The nn is used to clear up electromagnetic inference as there's no shielding cage. It's not anything lik a superresolution approach on the processed voxel data.
- rexreed 5y agoOk good clarification as the title of the post seems to imply much more than just fixing interference. As always, the article subject is the hook that gets you in and then you realize it's not as might have been expected.
- egocodedinsol 5y ago“There are approximately seven scanners per million inhabitants and over 90% are concentrated in high-income countries. We describe an ultra-low-field brain MRI scanner that operates using a standard AC power outlet and is low cost to build.” This is fantastic. What a sentence to get to write.
- cute_boi 5y agoYea, the way they turned the bleak situation into something sanguine is fascinating. I still remember how expensive is MRI. I used to earn like $150 usd and the cost was around $200 usd. I hope such inequality shall perish in the future, so people can at least get proper treatment.
- asiachick 5y agoI'm curious what makes them expensive. In Japan they are basically free (covered by national insurance for which the price is low). I believe at one point Japan had the most MRI machines per capita. I think the government just decided they were worth while and got a bunch where as in the USA they were seen as a money source and they generally charge $1k to $10k ?!?!?! I'd love for the expensive ones to be disrupted. The dream is we get some attachment for our smart phones and turn them into Tricorders.
- morcheeba 5y agoI worked for a medical company that did RF tumor ablation. In Japan we sold a machine that cooked small tumors as an out-patient procedure, because their easy MRIs would spot them early. In the US, we sell more complicated machines that work on bigger tumors because we find them later here - when they get too big, you have to be very careful not to damage surrounding tissue.
- dv_dt 5y agoAs with many other parts is US healthcare, we pay too much for the exact same products and services. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/03/15/why-an-mri-costs-1080-in-america-and-280-in-france/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/03/15/why-a...
- m00dy 5y agowell, I can call this is a research :)
- ratg13 5y agoWhen we say "low-cost", just how low cost are we talking here? I skimmed through the article, but still didn't comprehend how much something like this might actually cost.
- gnatman 5y agoTowards the bottom: "Such scanner can be made low cost to manufacture, maintain and operate. For quantity production, we estimate hardware material costs under USD20K."
- SubiculumCode 5y agoThat's cheap...just not cheap enough for me to want to build it in my garage as a party gag.
- datavirtue 5y agoI have seen people of modest means build cars that cost five times that in their garage. ...and that was twenty years ago.
- SubiculumCode 5y agoNo doubt, but they did it for love, not as a, "oh hey, you wanna get in my MRI" gag at a party :)
- ska 5y agoThe up front cost is only one part of the story. Siting a conventional MRI is pretty expensive (often requires a new build 6 figures for sure) and operation costs can run up to even 5 fig/month for powerful ones. They could probably get one of these out the door for approx 100k. Clinical scanners are typically 10x+ that. Siting cost would be next to nothing, and operating costs low too.
- lostlogin 5y ago
- devwastaken 5y agoHow does this fare against patents? Isn't pretty much everything to do with the actual implementation of an MRI patented and copyrighted in some way to prevent anyone else from entering the game?
- ska 5y agoThe basic patents all expired ages ago. There are details patented by everyone, but there is a lot of FTO. The real barrier to entry is cost. Building out a permanent magnet system like this is likely an order or two cheaper though.
- aidenn0 5y agoThe very first NMRI images were published in the early 70s, so at least some of what is required must be public domain now. The original diffusion and perfusion patents are both from the 80s, so should also be expired I think? That being said it's very hard to make any even slightly novel machine (MRI or otherwise) that isn't so close to an existing patent that a judge would dismiss a suit out of hand.
- ck2 5y agoNow build a truck with MRI in the back and drive to where it's most needed. They already do this with DEXA body scans. Examples: https://bodyandbone.com/mobile-dexa-services https://bodyandbone.com/mobile-dexa-services https://body-comp.com/testing/mobile-dexa/ https://body-comp.com/testing/mobile-dexa/ https://www.bodyspec.com/ https://www.bodyspec.com/
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ubercore 5y agoThere have been CT scanners put in helicopters as well: https://www.auntminnieeurope.com/index.aspx?sec=ser&sub=def&pag=dis&ItemID=619386 https://www.auntminnieeurope.com/index.aspx?sec=ser&sub=def&...
- ISL 5y agoEdit: This post was intended as a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30209618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30209618 , presently below > The lead author, Dr. Craig Bennett, wanted to get something fresh, so he headed in to the grocery story first thing in the morning. At the fish counter, he spoke the words that will echo down the centuries as a testimony to the dedication and drive of neuroscientists throughout the ages: >"I need a full length Atlantic Salmon. For science." That reminds me of the day that I needed a strong lightweight cable for a silica-fiber melting/drawing apparatus. After some puzzling, I realized that bicycle shift/brake cabling would probably be perfect for the task. I'll never forget the puzzled look at the bike shop -- "What kind of bike are you putting it on?" "I'm not, I just need some brake cable for a science experiment...." As I recall, I think we finally settled on some precut cabling for a GT Zaskar of some kind. Similar things came up the day that I needed a valve that switched faster than our dedicated micro-switching valves. A similar light-bulb went on, and I went down to the nearby auto shop for a fuel-injector. "What kind of car do you need it for?" "I don't, but there are a couple of different valve-switching protocols, some that latch open and others that accept straight TTL at reasonable currents. I need one of those." That experiment was brought to you by an injector for, I believe, a Dodge Caravan, and later, when I needed another, an injector for a Ford Mustang. Fuel-injectors are really good valves.
- toiletfuneral 5y agoMade a a pretty sick vacuum tube in high school with clear acrylic and put a shrader valve on it so it could be easily decompressed with an auto shop ac recharge machine. I won the shit out that science fair showing a feather drop like a rock
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mr337 5y agoSome of the automotive stuff is really great to get started. Was working on an agriculture robot and needed a good way to detect a level of something. In short a IP65+ hall effect sensor that can get wet and dirt no problem. The solution was a $12 ride sensor from a Cadillac SUV of some type. Worked perfect!
- alehackp19 5y ago
- carbocation 5y agoThis sort of technology offers a lot of value for understanding human health in the future. Right now, we (physicians) discourage people from getting tested outside of guidelines because we don't know what to do with incidental findings. But you could imagine that as a society, we would like to detect and understand these things, rather than just remain ignorant to them. Inexpensive technology like this could be perfect for performing large-scale studies with repeated sampling of volunteers over time, to gain information that can help the next generation.
- robwwilliams 5y agoAnd perfect for very high false discovery rates and unnecessary downstream diagnostic burden and iatrogenic errors. Rather see a focus on new magnet technologies to reduce cost without loss if already marginal clinical MRI resolution.
- sfink 5y ago> And perfect for very high false discovery rates and unnecessary downstream diagnostic burden and iatrogenic errors. ...which is exactly why the comment you're replying to says that physicians discourage them. That's missing the point; noisier devices are indeed not going to be great at improving the existing applications. But there's a whole world of other possibilities out there as long you don't try to substitute questionable data for good. Like monitoring over time, or between-patients studies where you get additional significance from large numbers, or even just fishing expeditions where you see what the cheaper and more deployable stuff is capable of. Not everything needs the best and only the best. > Rather see a focus on new magnet technologies to reduce cost without loss if already marginal clinical MRI resolution. Why not both? The work required is going to be pretty different. And chaining them together is a time-honored technique: use the quick cheap thing to detect reasons to dig in with the fancy stuff. Your base rate may be low, but if the quick check is negative then the adjusted probability might drop it below some other cause that you'd be better off looking into. Data is good, just don't fuck it up.
- qrian 5y agoCan this also do fMRI? I'm already trying to build DIY fnirs machine for cogsci research but if this does fMRI too I might build this one too.
- qrian 5y ago> First, these scanners rely on complex superconducting electromagnet/cryogenics designs and ever increasingly powerful electronics (including gradient and radiofrequency power systems) for fast imaging and/or advanced imaging features like brain functional MRI and diffusion tractography, yet routine clinical uses only necessitate a small portion of these imaging protocols. I guess this implies not?
- hwillis 5y ago> We have experimentally estimated in our preliminary study that the apparent T1/T2 values for gray matter and white matter were approximately 330/110 ms and 260/100 ms at 0.055 T (vs. 1300/110 ms and 830/80 ms at 3 T51) while CSF maintains long T1 (>1500 ms) and T2 (>1000 ms). That's not particularly different from normal MRIs, and the achieved resolution is not that much worse than normal MRIs. The scans have lower contrast (and repeated/longer scans is one way to improve that) and using for functional imaging will make that worse, but honestly it doesn't seem to have suffered very much at all.
- endymi0n 5y agoApart from the potentially massive significance to low-income countries and health costs, does someone has a good grasp on the applicability of the algorithmical advances towards classic MRI? My current gut feeling is like: If 0.055 Tesla can create this kind of image quality, what could we possibly expect at 1.5 or more?
- lostlogin 5y agoYou can expect a lot and you get it. It's truely impressive what a bog standard 1.5 or 3T magnet can do and how fast it can do it. A standard brain protocol will often include whole brain imaging at 0.8mm x 0.8mm x 0.8mm voxel size or thereabouts. It takes about 4-5 minutes. A leg angio done from start to finish in 20 minutes. This is without more advanced processing, and some clever processing is coming into clinical use now. Deep Resolve (Siemens) and Compressed Sense/Sensing (Philips/Siemens) are what I'm thinking of. Faster scans, or more resolution in the same time. It's a good time to be using MRI. Edit: Compressed sense/sensing is not some AI/Machine learning thing. It's pretty neat though, a PR video here. https://www.siemens-healthineers.com/magnetic-resonance-imaging/clinical-specialities/compressed-sensing https://www.siemens-healthineers.com/magnetic-resonance-imag...
- theptip 5y agoAt $20k estimated cost, you are getting into territory where the TAM of non-medical uses may be higher. Sports physio / trainers would kill to be able to do regular MRI on their athletes. Being able to do pre/post workout imaging, and the kind of training programs this level of visibility would unlock, are quite exciting. Assuming you can generalize from brain to whole-body, I think you could sell one of these to every major sports team in the country, and making it a non-medical device (ie skipping the FDA) would let you iterate much faster. A couple more halvings in price and this is accessible to every sports physio office and gym in the country. Very cool!
- haldujai 5y agoThis wouldn’t work. I interpret musculoskeletal MRI studies in my practice. Small joint (what this would be used for) ligaments and tendons are incredibly difficult to see and assess even at ultra high res studies performs on 3T magnets. With the spatial resolution of this you would be way better off using ultrasound.
- extrapickles 5y agoIt would help with scale if practically every well equipped gym and veterinarian had one. Also, a large supply of used machines will eventually exist so even poorer locations can afford one. This might have some interesting industrial applications as well (checking composites for defects, food packaging, etc). There might be some other applications that are currently unknown as MRI machines are too expensive (eg: checking beams in bridges).
- saulrh 5y agoBeing able to use this around metal is also huge. It means you can use it on patients with metal implants or bullets in them, to guide surgery in real-time, in the surgical suite, at the same time as other medical instruments, at the patient's bedside instead of in a dedicated room that you have to transport the patient to, etc.
- _qua 5y agoPeople with metal implants and bullets can often still have MRIs with some additional screening/safety measures. There may be advantages to operating under live MRI guidance but I'm not aware of any research on that. Even with low fields, you still would get artifact from having metal near your target of imaging.
- IshKebab 5y agoDifficult to use this in real time given the acquisition time is about 5 minutes!
- saulrh 5y agoThat's entirely fair, yeah. Still much faster than closing the patient back up so you can drive them to imaging!
- ohbleek 5y agoThis is even more evident in the time of Covid. Currently Covid patients have to do imaging at the very end of the day so Covid sanitizing protocols don’t have to be repeated over and over all day. It may seem minor but delaying imaging can delay other procedures and therapies for an entire day. Having the option to transport the equipment instead of the patient has many clear benefits.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- m3kw9 5y agoSo if a billionaire wanted to make a difference, they can buy enough of these to make a difference?
- chrisbrandow 5y agoHaving worked with NMR a long time ago, I find this mind-blowing. This is really impressive.
- CryptoPunk 5y agoI believe affordable and abundant diagnostic and imaging medical devices is a prerequisite for a medical technology revolution that substantially increases lifespans.
- agumonkey 5y agoI wish I had this on my head in 2013.