Adaptive speech enhancement using directional microphone in a 4-T MRI scanner.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive speech enhancement (ASE) system for the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) environment to reduce the loud scanning noise without disrupting the communication between patients and MRI operators. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The developed system employed the idea of differential directional microphones for measuring and distinguishing the speech signals and MRI acoustic noises simultaneously. Two-stage adaptive filters with normalized least mean square algorithms were adopted. Two common MRI scanning sequences, echo planar imaging (EPI) and gradient echo multi-slice (GEMS), were tested using a 4T MRI scanner. RESULTS: A total of 1.4 and 3.3 dB speech enhancements quantified by the cepstral distance assessment were achieved for the speech signal contaminated with the EPI and GEMS noises, respectively. The speech signal was noticeably recovered, and a clear speech waveform was observed after treated with the ASE system. Furthermore, a non-adaptive post-processing approach [i.e. simply using spectral subtraction (SS) technique] was also adopted to process the abovementioned results. Additional reductions were achieved for the non-coherent MRI acoustic noises. CONCLUSION: The results showed that combining the proposed ASE system along with the SS approach has a great potential for treating MRI acoustic noise to guarantee an effective communication from patient to MRI operators.

In situ active control of noise in a 4 T MRI scanner.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed active noise control (ANC) system for the reduction of the acoustic noise emission generated by a 4 T MRI scanner during operation and to assess the feasibility of developing an ANC device that can be deployed in situ. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Three typical scanning sequences, EPI (echo planar imaging), GEMS (gradient echo multislice), and MDEFT (modified driven equilibrium Fourier transform), were used for evaluating the performance of the ANC system, which was composed of a magnetic compatible headset and a multiple reference feedforward filtered-x least mean square controller. RESULTS: The greatest reduction, about 55 dB, was achieved at the harmonic at a frequency of 1.3 kHz in the GEMS case. Approximately 21 dB and 30 dBA overall reduction was achieved for GEMS noise across the entire audible frequency range. For the MDEFT sequence, the control system achieved 14 dB and 14 dBA overall reduction in the audible frequency range, while 13 dB and 14 dBA reduction was obtained for the EPI case. CONCLUSION: The result is highly encouraging because it shows great potential for treating magnetic resonance imaging noise with an ANC application during real-time scanning.

Simulation study on active noise control for a 4-T MRI scanner.

The purpose of this work is to study computationally the possibility of the application of a hybrid active noise control technique for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) acoustic noise reduction. A hybrid control system combined with both feedforward and feedback loops embedded is proposed for potential application on active MRI noise reduction. A set of computational simulation studies were performed. Sets of MRI acoustic noise emissions measured at the patient's left ear location were recorded and used in the simulation study. By comparing three different control systems, namely, the feedback, the feedforward and the hybrid control, our results revealed that the hybrid control system is the most effective. The hybrid control system achieved approximately a 20-dB reduction at the principal frequency component. We concluded that the proposed hybrid active control scheme could have a potential application for MRI scanner noise reduction.

Acoustic noise characteristics of a 4 Telsa MRI scanner.

PURPOSE: To quantify the acoustic noise characteristics of a 4 Tesla MRI scanner, and determine the effects of structural acoustics and gradient pulse excitations on the sound field so that feasible noise control measures can be developed. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Acoustic noise emissions were measured in the ear and mouth locations of a typical adult. The sound pressure measurements were acquired simultaneously with the electrical current signals of the gradient pulses. Two forms of gradient waveforms (impulsive and operating pulses) were studied. RESULTS: The sound pressure levels (SPLs) emitted by the MRI scanner operating in echo-planar imaging (EPI) mode were in the range of 120-130 decibels. Three types of sound pressure responses were observed in the EPI sequences: 1) harmonic, 2) nonharmonic, and 3) broadband. The frequency-encoding gradient pulses were the most dominant and produced generally odd-number harmonics and nonharmonics. The phase-encoding gradient pulses generated mostly even-number harmonics, and the slice-selection gradient pulses produced primarily a broadband spectrum. CONCLUSION: The operating condition acoustic spectrum can be predicted from the magnet-structural acoustic transfer functions, which are independent of imaging sequences. This finding is encouraging because it shows that it is possible to treat such noises with an active noise control application.