Dr. Sajan Goud Lingala, Assistant Professor at the Roy J Carver Department of Biomedical Engineering, and Department of Radiology, University of Iowa gave a talk on Seeing speech using novel high speed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on 24 July.
Speech production involves a complex spatiotemporal coordination of several articulators including the lips, tongue, velum, epiglottis, and the glottis. Current modalities to study speech production include electromagnetic articulography (EMA), ultrasound, X-ray videofluoroscopy, and real time magnetic resonance imaging. Dr Lingala spoke about MRI and its utility to assess speech in real time. MRI has unique advantages over other modalities (eg. non-invasiveness, flexibility in imaging arbitrary planes, visualizing deep structures, etc). However the slow image formation process has historically limited the achievable spatiotemporal resolutions, and slice coverage. He introduced novel sparse sampling and model based constrained reconstruction, and off-resonance reduction methods that his lab has developed which has dramatically improved the speed of real time MRI. This framework has enabled vocal tract imaging at upto 90 frames/sec, and 3D full vocal tract imaging of sustained sounds at short scan times of 7 sec. These tools provide a unique window to non-invasively assess various speech patterns. He also described efforts in other upper-airway applications including assessing breathing, swallowing.
Prior to joining University of Iowa, Dr. Lingala was a senior research scientist at Siemens Healthineers. He was a post-doctoral research associate at the Magnetic Resonance Engineering Laboratory (MREL), University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles. His research interests are in the design of advanced acquisition and reconstruction methods for rapid and informative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) exams. He has contributed to more than 25 articles in various high impact technical and clinical journals, over 65 peer-reviewed conference publications, one patent, and one book-chapter. He is also a recipient of several accolades including the Junior fellow distinction from the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM), Rex Montgomery best dissertation prize (Univ of Iowa), USC provost’s post-doc grant, American Heart Association pre-doctoral fellowship, best graduate student award (Iowa Institute of Biomedical Imaging, University of Iowa), summa and magna cum laude awards for several abstracts presented at the annual meetings of ISMRM.