Nuclear diagnostics and MRI: 3^rd and 4^th year option course

Outline

Module outline presented at May 2020 options fair
Module overview prepared as introductory handout

Overview

The course will run in the spring term from 15^th February to 26^th March 2021 and will be presented "online" in a mixture of asynchronous, pre-recorded "blocks" and synchronous "question and application" sessions.

The more "theoretical" content be delivered in the form of topic-specific mini lectures augmented by "active learning" online, e.g. "quizzes", mini literature-review projects, and problems. This material will be prepared by the lecturer (Ken Long) and course associate (Ruth McLauchlan) and released weekly by the Physics Undergraduate Office.

The synchronous content will address the practical application of the nuclear medicine and MRI techniques in the clinic. This material will be presented by practising medical physicists experts in the various field. Contributions will be made by Kuldip Nijran and Rebecca Quest from the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Sonia Nielles Vallespin from the National Heart and Lung Institute.

The synchronous content will be delivered in "Question and application" (Q&A) sessions. There will be two of these sessions each week; the first on Wednesdays at 11:00 and the second on Fridays at 14:00. Each Q&A session will include protected time allocated for the students to raise questions related to any of the material presented in the course.

Two problem sheets will be issued during the course, the first in week 3, the second in week 7.

Assessment will be 100% by exam. The exam will be based on the asynchronous taught content and the material presented in the Q&A sessions.

Asynchonous content

Week	Lecture	Section	"Active learning"
1. 15Feb21	1. Introduction, nuclear medicine o/v, nuclear decay theory	1. Introduction
		2. Nuclear medicine
		3. Nuclear decay, revision
	2. Radionuclides, production methods, gamma-camera intro	1. Radionuclides for nuclear medicine
		2. Methods for production of radionuclides
	3. The gamma camera	1. Introduction
		2. Gamma camera
		3. Collimator
		4. Scintillator
		5. Examples
2. 22Feb21	4. Single photon emission computed tomography	1. Introduction
		2. Reconstruction
		3. Attenuation correction
		4. Scattering correction
		5. Examples
	5. Positron emission tomography I	1. Principles of positron emission tomography
		2. System resolution
		3. Sensitivity
3. 01Mar21	6. Positron emission tomography II	1. Types of coincidence event
		2. System resolution
		3. Data acquisition
		4. Comparison of sensitivity and corrections
		5. Examples
	7. Introduction to MRI and quantum-mechanical foundations	1. Introduction to MRI
		2. Quantum mechanical foundations
4. 08Mar21	8. Classical development of principles of MRI	1. Classical derivation of Larmor equation
		2. Rotating the magnetisation
		3. Free induction decay
	9. Determination of T1 and T2	1. Determination of the spin-lattice relaxation time, T1
		2. Determination of the spin-spin relaxation time, T2
6. 15Mar21	10. Magnetic Resonance Imaging: spatial localisation	1. Slice selective excitation
		2. Encoding spatial information in k-space
		3. Encoding spatial information into net magnetisation
	11. Magnetic Resonance Imaging: contrast	1. Spin-echo sequence for proton-density weighted image
		2. Spin-echo sequence for T1-weighted image
		3. Spin-echo sequence for T2-weighted image
		4. Inversion recovery
7. 22Mar21	12. Magnetic Resonance Imaging: artefacts	1. Aliasing (wraparound) and the Nyquist theorem
		2. Truncation artefact; Gibbs phenomenon
		3. Random motion artefacts
	13. More MRI artefacts	1. MRI artefacts: periodic motion
		2. MRI artefacts: chemical shift

Exam -- "Timed remote assessment"

Guidance provided by the Physics UG office

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