Jason Stockmann, PhD, is broadly interested in magnetic resonance imaging hardware and acquisition methods for improving data quality for both structural and functional imaging. He has worked on diverse MRI scanners ranging in field strength by two orders of magnitude, from low-field (80 mT) to ultra-high field (7 Tesla). He specializes in developing synergistic combinations of hardware, pulse sequences, and image reconstruction algorithms that address unmet needs in MRI research, especially for diffusion and functional brain imaging with echo planar imaging (EPI) acquisitions. The major thrust of this work has been to develop multi-coil (MC) shim arrays and associated amplifier hardware and optimization methods to improve magnetic field homogeneity inside the body, thus reducing image distortions and other artifacts. More recently, he and colleagues have applied MC arrays to perform dynamic local field control, creating tailored nonlinear field offsets for (1) improving lipid suppression in spectroscopy and (2) selectively exciting and imaging target anatomy with increased efficiency. He is currently supported by a K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Grant to implement real-time multi-coil shimming to improve EPI data quality in the deep brain and brainstem, where functional connectivity MRI (fcMRI) holds the potential to shed light on the role that deep brain nuclei play in modulating arousal, pain and sleep.
Dr. Stockmann is also interested in low-field, portable MRI for point-of-care brain imaging. He has contributed to Dr. Lawrence Wald and Dr. Clarissa Cooley’s program to build a lightweight prototype brain scanner based on a Halbach array of permanent magnets (80mT main magnetic field). His primary role in this project has been to design pulse sequences and RF pulses that are robust to extreme field inhomogeneity. He has also helped build a generalized reconstruction framework that incorporates the full signal forward model including field nonlinearity. In parallel with this work, he has developed an interest in open-source hardware for MRI research and education. To this end, he contributed to a team effort by Dr. Wald’s group to build 20 tabletop MRI scanners (0.2 Tesla) for an undergraduate engineering lab course at MIT, at a cost of less than $10K per scanner.
He is strongly committed to open-source science and reproducible research across sites. All of his hardware designs and software codes are available online at the sites listed below. Materials not posted to these sites are freely available upon request.
Radio Frequency Laboratory of the Wald Group at MGH
Tabletop MRI Scanner Wiki
Open Source Imaging
Education
PhD in Biomedical Engineering, Yale University
Select Publications
1. Stockmann JP, Witzel T, Keil B, Polimeni JR, Mareyam A, LaPierre C, Setsompop K, Wald LL. A 32-channel combined RF and B0 shim array for 3T brain imaging. Magn Reson Med. 2016 Jan;75(1):441-51.
2. Stockmann JP, Galiana G, Tam L, Juchem C, Nixon TW, Constable RT. In vivo O-Space imaging with a dedicated 12 cm Z2 insert coil on a human 3T scanner using phase map calibration. Magn Reson Med. 2013 Feb;69(2):444-55.
3. Stockmann JP, Wald LL. In vivo B(0) field shimming methods for MRI at 7T. Neuroimage. 2018 Mar;168:71-87.
Highlights
Int. Soc. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Young Investigator Award Finalist (2012)
United States Patent #10,261,145: System and method for improved radio-frequency detection or B0 field shimming in magnetic resonance imaging (US 20150323628 A1)
United States Patent #8,710,839: O-space imaging: highly efficient parallel imaging using complementary nonlinear encoding gradient fields and receive coil geometries (US 20110241675 A1)
Websites
Magnetic Resonance Physics & Instrumentation Group
Low-field MRI and Hyperpolarized Media Laboratory