Priti Balchandani

As the Director of the High Field MRI program at BMEII, Dr. Balchandani focuses on developing novel techniques to exploit the power of high-field MR magnets to visualize the brain in unprecedented detail. She leads a team of 7T scientists to devise creative engineering methods to overcome some of the main limitations of operating at high magnetic fields, thereby enabling high-resolution whole-brain anatomical, spectroscopic and diffusion imaging as well as unlocking new contrast mechanisms and sources of signal. In order to achieve these goals, Dr. Balchandani’s team focuses on novel radio frequency (RF) pulse and pulse sequence design as well as specialized hardware solutions such as parallel transmission. These techniques are ultimately applied to improve diagnosis, treatment and surgical planning for a wide range of neurological diseases and disorders. Some clinical areas of focus for Dr. Balchandani’s team are: improved localization of epileptogenic foci; imaging to reveal the neurobiology of depression; and development of imaging methods to better guide neurosurgical resection of brain tumors.

Peer-reviewed publications
  1. Priti Balchandani, Rodney H. Torii, and Roger Shile, “Thin-film persistent current switch,” IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond., Volume 15,  Issue 3,  Sept. 2005 Page(s):3821 – 3826.
  1. Priti Balchandani, Daniel Spielman.  “Fat suppression for 1H MRSI at 7T using spectrally selective adiabatic inversion recovery,” Magn Reson Med. 2008 May;59(5):980-8. PMCID: PMC2724983.
  1. Priti Balchandani, John Pauly and Daniel Spielman. “Interleaved narrow-band PRESS sequence with adiabatic spatial-spectral refocusing pulses for 1H MRSI at 7T,” Magn Reson Med. 2008 May;59(5):973-9. PMCID: PMC2692522.
  1. Priti Balchandani, John Pauly and Daniel Spielman. “Slice-selective Tunable-flip AdiaBatic Low peak-power Excitation (STABLE) pulse,” Magn Reson Med. 2008 May;59(5):1072-8. PMCID: PMC2692433.
  1. Priti Balchandani,John Pauly, Philip Yang, Mayumi Yamada and Daniel Spielman.  “Self-refocused spatial-spectral pulse for positive contrast MR imaging of cells labeled with superparamagnetic iron-oxide nanoparticles,” Magn Reson Med. 2009 Jul; 62(1):183-92. PMCID: PMC2839544.
  1. Priti Balchandani, John Pauly and Daniel Spielman. “Designing adiabatic RF pulses using the Shinnar-Le Roux algorithm,” Magn Reson Med. 2010 Sep; 64(3):843-51. PMCID: PMC2975518.
  1. Priti Balchandani, Mohammad Mehdi Khalighi, Gary Glover, John Pauly, and Daniel Spielman. “Self‐refocused adiabatic pulse for spin echo imaging at 7T.” 2012 Apr; 67(4):1077-85.PMCID: PMC3548423.
  1. Priti Balchandani, Gary Glover, John Pauly and Daniel Spielman. “Improved slice-selective adiabatic excitation,” Magn Reson Med. 2014 Jan; 71(4):75-82. PMCID:PMC3714345.
  1. Priti Balchandani and Deqiang Qiu. “Semi-Adiabatic Shinnar Le-Roux Pulses and their Application to Diffusion Tensor Imaging of Humans at 7T” Magnetic Resonance Imaging. 2014 Apr (Early View Online).

Priti Balchandani PhD Profile on PlumX

 

Conference proceedings
  1. Priti Balchandani, John Pauly and Daniel Spielman. “Slice-selective Tunable-flip AdiaBatic Low peak-power Excitation (STABLE) pulse” oral presentation at ISMRM Annual Meeting, Toronto, May 2008.  Chosen as Young Investigators’ Award finalist.
  1. Michael Zeineh, Josef Parvizi, Priti Balchandani, Chunlei Liu, Gary Glover, Anne Sawyer, Robert Fisher and Scott Atlas. “Ultra-High Resolution 7T MRI of Medial Temporal Lobe Epilepsy” E-poster presentation at ISMRM Annual Meeting, Hawaii, April 2009.
  1. Priti Balchandani and Daniel Spielman. “Adiabatic Magnetization Preparation Pulse for T2-contrast at 7 Tesla” poster presentation at ISMRM Annual Meeting, Stockholm, April 2010.
  1. Priti Balchandani, Mohammad M. Khalighi, Scott S. Hsieh, Kawin Setsompop, John Pauly and Daniel Spielman.  “Adiabatic B1 Shimming Algorithm for Multiple Channel Transmit Setup” poster presentation at ISMRM Annual Meeting, Montreal, April 2011.
  1. Priti Balchandani, Daniel Spielman and John Pauly. “STABLE-2: A shorter, more B0-insensitive option for adiabatic slice-selective excitation” poster presentation at ISMRM Annual Meeting, Melbourne, May 2012. Received ISMRM Magna Cum Laude Award.
  1. Priti Balchandani, John Pauly, Daniel Spielman and Gary Glover. “Spin Echo and Adiabatic Spin Echo Motion Compensated Spiral functional MRI” poster presentation at ISMRM Annual Meeting, Melbourne, May 2012.
  1. Priti Balchandani and Deqiang Qiu. “Optimized twice-refocused adiabatic spin echo sequence for diffusion weighted imaging of humans at 7T” poster presentation at ISMRM Annual Meeting, Salt Lake City, April 2013.
Patents
  1. Priti Balchandani, Daniel Spielman and John Pauly, “Method to design adiabatic RF pulses using the Shinnar Le-Roux algorithm,” US Patent 8,473,536.
  1. Priti Balchandani, Daniel Spielman and John Pauly, “Method for Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopic Imaging,” US Patent 7966053.
  1. Priti Balchandani, John Pauly and Daniel Spielman. “Slice-selective Tunable-flip AdiaBatic Low peak-power Excitation (STABLE) pulse,” US Patent 7683618.
  1. Priti Balchandani, John Pauly and Daniel Spielman. “Self-refocused spatial-spectral pulse pair,” US Patent 7821263.
  1. Priti Balchandani, Rebecca Feldman and Haisam Islam. “Implementation of a self-refocused adiabatic spin echo pulse-pair modulated using the power independent of the number of slices (PINS) technique for simultaneous B1-insensitive multi-slice imaging.” US provisional patent submitted.
Research Support

ACTIVE
R00 NS070821-03 (Priti Balchandani, Ph.D.)
05/01/2011 – 03/31/2016 – NIH/NINDS
Title: High Resolution Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy of Epilepsy at 7T.
The goals of this project are to develop innovative techniques to overcome the technical limitations associated with 7 Tesla MRI and MRS and combine these techniques to create a comprehensive 7 Tesla epilepsy imaging protocol.