Open research questions in Advanced MRI Techniques and Applications

What the literature leaves open

• The lack of a distinct CPT code for rapid MRI examinations can lead to inaccurate reimbursement. The recognition of the limited modifier for rapid MRI examinations can be inconsistent across payors.

  Payor and patient costs for rapid brain MRI: analysis from a single pediatric institution · 2026 · DOI

• Further studies are needed to investigate the impact of insurance benefit design on patient out-of-pocket costs for MRI examinations. Research is needed to develop a distinct CPT code for rapid MRI examinations.

  Payor and patient costs for rapid brain MRI: analysis from a single pediatric institution · 2026 · DOI

• Spatial heterogeneities of transmit B1 magnitude. Signal variations. Limited image quality and contrast at 7T.

  Cardiac function and myocardial strain analysis at 7T using B1 shimming in comparison to 3T magnetic resonance imaging · 2026 · DOI

• Technical challenges: slice thickness influences brain volume measurements, and resampling is necessary to improve comparability. Methodological challenges: the study required the development of a protocol for resampling and analyzing MRI scans. Clinical challenges: the study's findings have implications for the design of future neonatal MRI studies.

  Harmonization of slice thickness through resampling improves comparability of MRI-derived neonatal brain volumes · 2026 · DOI

• Motion artifacts due to respiration. Long acquisition time of T2-weighted imaging. Limited strategies to mitigate motion artifacts.

  Leveraging a vendor-neutral deep learning reconstruction algorithm to reduce scan time and enhance image quality in T2-weighted liver MRI · 2026 · DOI

• Complex structural deformations induced by brain tumors. Limited availability of paired pre-tumor scans and explicit healthy references. Substantial inter-subject variability in brain anatomy.

  BrainNormalizer: anatomy-informed pseudo-healthy brain reconstruction from tumor MRI via edge-guided ControlNet · 2026 · DOI

• The heterogeneity of MRI sequences. The need for large amounts of labeled data. The lack of robustness to domain shifts across diverse MRI sequences.

  Large-scale multi-sequence pretraining for generalizable MRI analysis in versatile clinical applications · 2026 · DOI

• ABSTRACT Purpose Most sites develop and use custom coils for 7 T body MRI since no standard pTx body coil exists, leading to diverse coil designs differing in transmit element type, layout, and number of receive channels.

  Evaluation of 7 Tesla <scp>pTx</scp> Body Coils Regarding Transmit and Receive Performance · 2026 · DOI

• Third, this study primarily focuses on the evaluation of image quality metrics, and future work will consider incorporating clinical validation, including diagnostic accuracy and clinical relevance. In addition, all participants had clinically diagnosed TLE, therefore, the applicability of the results to other epilepsy sub- types or neurological disorders remains to be established. Deep learning-based segmentation could be explored in future work.

  Evaluation of regularization factor and attenuation correction method of Q.Clear reconstruction for brain PET/MR in epileptic patients · 2026 · DOI

• The study was retrospective. The sample size was limited to 92 patients. Patient positioning of intubated patients in MRI scanner is generally considered difficult.

  Clinical implementation of ultra-low-field portable MRI in the neuro-intensive care and stroke unit · 2026 · DOI

• There is a need for a safe and feasible imaging modality for stroke-unit and neuro-intensive care patients. Ultra-low-field portable MRI has the potential to fill this gap.

  Clinical implementation of ultra-low-field portable MRI in the neuro-intensive care and stroke unit · 2026 · DOI

• Previous hypercapnia studies using BOLD MRI have reported reduced or negative WM cerebrovascular reactivity, but whether these findings reflect true reductions in cerebral blood flow (CBF) remains unclear.

  Hemodynamic Responses in the White Matter (WM): Reduced Blood Flow in Deep WM During Hypercapnia Revealed by Multi-Delay pCASL in Healthy Young Adults · 2026 · DOI

• Although orientation dependence of R2 and R2* in white matter (WM) has been attributed primarily to myelin, the vascular contribution to R2' has not been systematically characterized.

  Orientation Dependence of R2' in White Matter: Digital Characterization, Modelling and Implications for Studying Brain Physiology · 2026 · DOI

• Cerebral oxygen extraction fraction (OEF) reflects the balance between cerebral oxygen delivery and metabolic demand, but its normative evolution across the human lifespan remains unknown.

  Oxygen extraction fraction brain charts for human lifespan and application for brain disorders · 2026 · DOI

• Cardiac MRI at 7 Tesla is still far from being clinically established due to spatial heterogeneities of transmit B1 magnitude. There is no state-of-the-art B1 shimming method for body imaging at 7T.

  Cardiac function and myocardial strain analysis at 7T using B1 shimming in comparison to 3T magnetic resonance imaging · 2026 · DOI

• The current standard MRI protocol has long imaging times, delaying diagnosis and treatment. There is a need for faster MRI protocols that can be used in acute settings.

  Ultrafast MRI for acute stroke assessment: a comparative analysis with conventional protocol in motion and stable patients · 2026 · DOI

• To address the technical limitations of 7T MRI in spinal imaging, such as radiofrequency coil design and susceptibility artifacts. To develop standardized imaging protocols for 7T MRI in spinal imaging. To investigate the use of 7T MRI in various spinal pathologies, such as multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injury.

  Clinical Research for the Use of 7 T Magnetic Resonance Imaging for Spinal Pathologies: a Scoping Review · 2026 · DOI

• The lack of standardized imaging protocols for 7T MRI in spinal imaging. The need for FDA-clearance for spinal indications. The limited number of studies on the use of 7T MRI for spinal pathologies.

  Clinical Research for the Use of 7 T Magnetic Resonance Imaging for Spinal Pathologies: a Scoping Review · 2026 · DOI

• The need for a technique that can achieve stable k-space coverage and improved sampling incoherence for dynamic MRI with low acoustic noise and high spatiotemporal resolution.

  Arc‐ <scp>ZTE</scp> : Continuously‐Slewed Zero‐ <scp>TE</scp> Imaging With Incoherent Temporal Sampling for Near‐Silent Dynamic <scp>MRI</scp> · 2026 · DOI

• Future studies can build on the current study's findings to further evaluate the impact of slice thickness on brain volume measurements. Future studies can explore the application of resampling techniques to other MRI sequences and populations. Future studies can investigate the clinical significance of the differences in brain volume measurements between different slice thickness settings.

  Harmonization of slice thickness through resampling improves comparability of MRI-derived neonatal brain volumes · 2026 · DOI

• The need for a computationally efficient method for estimating coil sensitivities and reconstructing under-sampled images. The need for a method that can provide good image quality with no apparent parallel imaging artefacts.

  Online image reconstruction via Multiple Orthogonal Reference Sensitivity Encoding (MORSE) · 2026 · DOI

• Developing the system for use with other MRI scanner models, - Improving the climate chamber design for large-scale plant imaging, - Exploring the use of the system for other research applications.

  In-bore climate control chamber for magnetic resonance imaging of living plants · 2026 · DOI

• The need for a low-cost and integrated climate-controlled growth chamber for MRI of living plants, - The lack of a suitable system for maintaining stable environmental conditions during plant MRI scans.

  In-bore climate control chamber for magnetic resonance imaging of living plants · 2026 · DOI

• The study does not address other motion artifacts such as those caused by cardiac motion and vessel pulsation. The reduced refocusing flip angle in accelerated T2WI necessitated a longer TE to maintain T2 contrast equivalent to that in routine T2WI.

  Leveraging a vendor-neutral deep learning reconstruction algorithm to reduce scan time and enhance image quality in T2-weighted liver MRI · 2026 · DOI

• The quantification of sodium content does not produce an absolute measurement due to the lack of relaxation correction. The uncertainty of whether receive and transmit correction are accurate is a limitation. One female volunteer withdrew during scanning due to discomfort.

  Estimation of skin sodium content via 23Na magnetic resonance imaging at 3 T using a single-loop surface transmit/receive coil · 2026 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Advanced MRI Techniques and Applications

• CAT: a computational anatomy toolbox for the analysis of structural MRI data · GigaScience · 2024 · 517 citations
• Recommended implementation of quantitative susceptibility mapping for clinical research in the brain: A consensus of the <scp>ISMRM</scp> electro‐magnetic tissue properties study group · Magnetic Resonance in Medicine · 2024 · 131 citations
• Whole-body magnetic resonance imaging at 0.05 Tesla · Science · 2024 · 106 citations
• Comparison of native myocardial T1 and T2 mapping at 1.5T and 3T in healthy volunteers · Wiener klinische Wochenschrift · 2018 · 80 citations
• T1-weighted and T2-weighted MRI image synthesis with convolutional generative adversarial networks · Reports of Practical Oncology & Radiotherapy · 2021 · 58 citations
• In vivo imaging of the human brain with the Iseult 11.7-T MRI scanner · Nature Methods · 2024 · 50 citations
• MRI-based cephalometrics: a scoping review of current insights and future perspectives · Dentomaxillofacial Radiology · 2023 · 10 citations
• MRI susceptibility artefacts caused by orthodontic wire · Dentomaxillofacial Radiology · 2024 · 4 citations
• Deep learning image enhancement for confident diagnosis of TMJ osteoarthritis in zero-TE MR imaging · Dentomaxillofacial Radiology · 2025 · 4 citations
• Non-Invasive measurement of the cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen using MRI in rodents · Wellcome Open Research · 2021 · 4 citations

Most recent work

• High-resolution whole-brain magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging in youth at risk for psychosis · bioRxiv · 2026
• An RF coil array system for in vivo & ex vivo non-human primate brain studies at 10.5 Tesla · bioRxiv · 2026
• Deep learning super-resolution of paediatric ultra-low-field MRI without paired high-field scans · bioRxiv · 2026
• WHITE-Net : White matter HyperIntensities Tissue Extraction using deep learning Network · medRxiv · 2026
• Payor and patient costs for rapid brain MRI: analysis from a single pediatric institution · Pediatric Radiology · 2026
• Evaluation of regularization factor and attenuation correction method of Q.Clear reconstruction for brain PET/MR in epileptic patients · EJNMMI Physics · 2026
• The Impact and Reliability of Tissue Segmentation on In Vivo Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Metabolite Quantification · Magnetic Resonance in Medicine · 2026
• Integrating AI-assisted image enhancement with physics-based synthesis of low-field MRI from high-field MRI · Physics in Medicine & Biology · 2026
• Deep learning-based reconstruction improves MRI image quality and diagnostic performance for carotid atherosclerotic plaques · Frontiers in Neurology · 2026
• Multi-contrast dual-resolution UTE for myelin fraction mapping and structural imaging · Magnetic Resonance Materials in Physics, Biology and Medicine · 2026

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