For studies of cardiac function, we have developed a rapid 4D tagged imaging sequence, which combined with 3D optical flow analysis (OFM) allows direct tracking of myocardial deformation. Accurate quantification of the motion and deformation of the intact myocardium in fundamental to understanding cardiac mechanics, improving diagnosis and developing treatments.

MR imaging has also been used to asses infarct size in vivo. From makers placed on the epicardial surface, infarct size is estimated from 3D models by integrating the volume bounded by the markers.

Whole heart high temperal and spatial resolution myocardial perfusion from MR first pass enhancement images are being applied to the study of myoardial infarction.

Many of the tools developed for our cardiovascular research have been applied to other applications such as breast DCE-MRI, lung perfusion, lung nodule detection ands head and neck tumor classification.