Researchers in France and China have adapted a technique from video processing in computer vision to study regional motion in cine-MRI. The technique, which involves the extraction of intensity parameters such as local magnitude, phase and orientation, could help in the diagnosis of patients with heart failure.
Regular MRI allows clinicians to observe tissue inside the body, but as it does not record information in real time it is poorly suited to study moving organs, such as the heart. To get around this limitation, cine-MRI takes sequential images of the heart during the cardiac cycle using an electrocardiogram as a trigger; the patient is also asked to hold his or her breath so that additional movement is not generated by inhaling or exhaling. The result is a two-dimensional film of a slice of the heart during a beating cycle. […]
The rest of this article is available here.