Thomas Witzel

Bio: Thomas Witzel is an academic researcher from Harvard University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Diffusion MRI & Magnetoencephalography. The author has an hindex of 39, co-authored 137 publications receiving 7054 citations. Previous affiliations of Thomas Witzel include Baxter International & Siemens.

Blipped-controlled aliasing in parallel imaging for simultaneous multislice echo planar imaging with reduced g-factor penalty.

Abstract: Simultaneous multislice Echo Planar Imaging (EPI) acquisition using parallel imaging can decrease the acquisition time for diffusion imaging and allow full-brain, high-resolution functional MRI (fMRI) acquisitions at a reduced repetition time (TR) However, the unaliasing of simultaneously acquired, closely spaced slices can be difficult, leading to a high g-factor penalty We introduce a method to create interslice image shifts in the phase encoding direction to increase the distance between aliasing pixels The shift between the slices is induced using sign- and amplitude-modulated slice-select gradient blips simultaneous with the EPI phase encoding blips This achieves the desired shifts but avoids an undesired "tilted voxel" blurring artifact associated with previous methods We validate the method in 3× slice-accelerated spin-echo and gradient-echo EPI at 3 T and 7 T using 32-channel radio frequency (RF) coil brain arrays The Monte-Carlo simulated average g-factor penalty of the 3-fold slice-accelerated acquisition with interslice shifts is <1% at 3 T (compared with 32% without slice shift) Combining 3× slice acceleration with 2× inplane acceleration, the g-factor penalty becomes 19% at 3 T and 10% at 7 T (compared with 41% and 23% without slice shift) We demonstrate the potential of the method for accelerating diffusion imaging by comparing the fiber orientation uncertainty, where the 3-fold faster acquisition showed no noticeable degradation

Task-modulated what and where pathways in human auditory cortex

Abstract: Human neuroimaging studies suggest that localization and identification of relevant auditory objects are accomplished via parallel parietal-to-lateral-prefrontal “where” and anterior-temporal-to-inferior-frontal “what” pathways, respectively. Using combined hemodynamic (functional MRI) and electromagnetic (magnetoencephalography) measurements, we investigated whether such dual pathways exist already in the human nonprimary auditory cortex, as suggested by animal models, and whether selective attention facilitates sound localization and identification by modulating these pathways in a feature-specific fashion. We found a double dissociation in response adaptation to sound pairs with phonetic vs. spatial sound changes, demonstrating that the human nonprimary auditory cortex indeed processes speech-sound identity and location in parallel anterior “what” (in anterolateral Heschl’s gyrus, anterior superior temporal gyrus, and posterior planum polare) and posterior “where” (in planum temporale and posterior superior temporal gyrus) pathways as early as ≈70–150 ms from stimulus onset. Our data further show that the “where” pathway is activated ≈30 ms earlier than the “what” pathway, possibly enabling the brain to use top-down spatial information in auditory object perception. Notably, selectively attending to phonetic content modulated response adaptation in the “what” pathway, whereas attending to sound location produced analogous effects in the “where” pathway. This finding suggests that selective-attention effects are feature-specific in the human nonprimary auditory cortex and that they arise from enhanced tuning of receptive fields of task-relevant neuronal populations.

Geant4 developments and applications

Abstract: Geant4 is a software toolkit for the simulation of the passage of particles through matter. It is used by a large number of experiments and projects in a variety of application domains, including high energy physics, astrophysics and space science, medical physics and radiation protection. Its functionality and modeling capabilities continue to be extended, while its performance is enhanced. An overview of recent developments in diverse areas of the toolkit is presented. These include performance optimization for complex setups; improvements for the propagation in fields; new options for event biasing; and additions and improvements in geometry, physics processes and interactive capabilities