Abstract #1235

Caught Sleeping: Recording of Snoring During a Real-Time MRI Scan

Yoon-Chul Kim¹, Michael I. Proctor², Michael C.K. Khoo³, Shrikanth S. Narayanan¹, Krishna S. Nayak¹

¹Electrical Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States; ²Linguistics, University of Western Sydney, Sydney, Australia; ³Biomedical Engineering and Pediatrics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Real-time MRI has been used to study speech production as well as to identify collapse sites in subjects with obstructive sleep apnea. Snoring is a common precursor to apnea, and an indication of potential airway obstruction. We implemented a pulse sequence to allow for gradual ramping of gradients, resulting in gradual increase of acoustic noise, to facilitate natural sleep onset. In one subject, who reported falling asleep, we observed airway obstruction near the soft palate, and MRI-noise cancelled synchronized audio of snoring sounds.