Dr. Ian G. Cameron

Biography

Dr. Ian G. Cameron Adjunct Research Professor The Ottawa Hospital - Diagnostic Imaging - Magnetic Resonance Imaging 501 Smyth Road, General Campus

Research Interest

With Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), "pictures" of the inside of the body are obtained noninvasively. The signals from which these MR images are made are generated mainly by 1H nuclei of water. MRI has become a vital part of diagnostic medicine, especially for head, spine and joint imaging. Two areas of MRI research, which are available for graduate student involvement, are diffusion MRI and perfusion MRI. Most of this work will be done on the MR imagers at the Ottawa Hospital. Contrast between tissues in an MR image is a result of differences in inherent tissue parameters such as NMR relaxation times or water diffusion coefficients (D) between tissues, however, the physics of exactly how these processes contribute to the contrast is often unclear. MR diffusion measurements are rich in information about the microscopic environment of the cells. The challenge is to extract this information and display it in a meaningful way. Currently our focus is on separating the intracellular behaviour from the extracelluar dynamics for human brain white matter in vivo and to study the exchange of water between these two environments.