Patents Examined by Barry Pass
  • Signal analysis for navigated magnetic resonance imaging
    Patent number: 6516210
    Abstract: A method of imaging a patient with an MRI scanner (10) includes imaging a region of interest of the patient with the MRI scanner (10) and acquiring image data resulting from the imaging. An image of the region of interest is reconstructed from the image data. The method also includes generating navigator echos during the imaging, collecting the navigator echos and deriving, from each navigator echo, a measurement of patient motion experience during the imaging. A historical record of the measurements is maintained. Parameters for the acquisition of image data are selected to compensate for motion, or specific image data is selected for reconstruction, based on the historical record.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 22, 2000
    Date of Patent: February 4, 2003
    Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.
    Inventor: David L. Foxall
  • Non focussed method of exciting and controlling acoustic fields in animal body parts
    Patent number: 6514220
    Abstract: The effect of ultrasound irradiation of a human or other animal body portion is enhanced by operating the body portion as a trapped mode resonator. The intensity and location of resonances within the body portion is controlled by controlling such variables as the amplitude, frequency and/or phase of the ultrasound irradiation. This minimizes the overall energy required to be applied to the body portion in order to achieve a desired localized intensity level.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 25, 2001
    Date of Patent: February 4, 2003
    Assignee: Walnut Technologies
    Inventors: Hewlett E. Melton, Jr., James T. Fearnside, Claudio I. Zanelli
  • MR method for exciting the nuclear magnetization in a limited volume
    Patent number: 6512941
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method of and a device for exciting the nuclear magnetization in a limited volume of an object to be examined, utilizing a microcoil (L) which is present in the volume and is attached, for example, to an interventional instrument during the formation of a magnetic resonance image of the object to be examined. The excitation of the nuclear magnetization is performed by at least one RF pulse whose frequency spectrum does not overlap the range of the spin resonance spectrum, so that no nuclear magnetization is excited outside the close range of the microcoil in the object to be examined. The microcoil, however, is provided with an active or passive circuit (for example, it is wired together with at least one capacitance (C) and a non-linear component (D1, D2) so as to form a non-linear resonant circuit) which locally generates an RF signal from the RF pulse.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 22, 2000
    Date of Patent: January 28, 2003
    Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.
    Inventors: Steffen Weiss, Kai-Michael Lüdeke