Novel MRI Technologies for Structural and Functional Imaging of Tissues with Ultra-short T2 Values

Conventional MRI has several limitations such as long scan durations, motion artifacts, very high acoustic noise levels, signal loss due to short relaxation times, and RF induced heating of electrically conducting objects. The goals of this thesis are to evaluate state-of-the-art methods for MRI of tissue with short relaxation times, to prove the feasibility of CEA in a clinical MRI system, and to introduce a new electrophysiological measurement unit applied simultaneously with lung MRI.