ISCA Archive Interspeech 2024
ISCA Archive Interspeech 2024

State-of-the-art speech production MRI protocol for new 0.55 Tesla scanners

Prakash Kumar, Ye Tian, Yongwan Lim, Sophia X. Cui, Christina Hagedorn, Dani Byrd, Uttam K. Sinha, Shrikanth Narayanan, Krishna S. Nayak

Real-time magnetic resonance imaging (RT-MRI) is a safe and powerful tool for studying vocal tract dynamics during speech production. Emerging low- and mid-field MRI platforms bring new capability including higher frame rates, improved tissue contrast, and reduced blurring compared to conventional 1.5T and 3T MRI. Here, we present a state-of-the-art speech production MRI protocol tailored to the 0.55T platform. This includes 2D mid-sagittal vocal tract RT-MRI, simultaneous multislice RT-MRI with 3 parallel slices, tagged RT-MRI for functional evaluation of internal tongue deformation, biofeedback that allows participants to see their scan in real-time, and 3D static imaging. Imaging performance is comparable and, in several cases, superior to 1.5T and 3T MRI, making 0.55T an exciting new platform for speech research.