HALO: A software tool for real-time head alignment in the MR scanner.

Abstract

MRI studies in human subjects often require multiple scanning sessions/visits. Changes in a subject's head position across sessions result in different alignment between brain tissues and the magnetic field which leads to changes in magnetic susceptibility. These changes can have considerable impacts on acquired signals. Head ALignment Optimization (HALO), a software tool was developed by the authors for active head alignment between sessions. HALO provides real-time visual feedback of a subject's current head position relative to the position in a previous session. The tool was evaluated in a pilot sample of seven healthy human subjects. HALO was shown to enable subjects to actively align their head positions to the desired position of their initial sessions. The subjects were able to improve their head alignment significantly using HALO and achieved good alignment with their first session meeting stringent criteria similar to that used for within-run head motion (less than 2 mm translation or 2 degrees rotation in any direction from the desired position). Moreover, we found a negative correlation between the post-alignment rotation and similarity in inter-session BOLD patterns around the air-tissue interface near sinus which further highlighted the impact of tissue-field alignment on BOLD data quality. Utilization of HALO in longitudinal studies may help to improve data quality by ensuring the consistency of susceptibility gradients in brain tissues across sessions. HALO has been made publicly available.