Towards Truly Quiet MRI: Animal Scale Gradient as a Test Platform for Acoustic Noise Reduction

AbdEl-Monem M. El-Sharkawy¹, William A. Edelstein¹

MRI acoustic noise often exceeds 100 dB, causing patient anxiety and discomfort, and is an obstacle to interventional MRI procedures. Clinical MRI acoustic noise reduction is a long-standing unsolved engineering challenge made especially difficult because special equipment and large-scale engineering test facilities are needed for experiments. Our approach is to produce a Truly Quiet (< 70 dB) small-scale animal imager. Results serve as a test platform for acoustic noise reduction measures that can be implemented in clinical scanners. We have so far decreased noise in an animal scale system from 108 dB to 81 dB, a 27 dB reduction.