Submission 2025
| Submitted by: | Varsha Kesavan |
| Department: | Radiology + Diagnostic Imaging |
| Faculty: | Medicine + Dentistry |
This image captures the face of a child trying to hold their breath, a striking reminder of the challenges young patients face during cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) scans. CMR is a gold-standard imaging technique for diagnosing heart conditions, but it often requires patients to remain still and hold their breath. This requirement, essential for clear imaging in current clinical practice, is particularly difficult for children. As a result, images captured during natural, free breathing are often degraded by motion artifacts, making them harder to interpret accurately. My research develops AI-based methods to learn to correct these distortions, thereby restoring image quality without the need for sedation or repeat scans. This image symbolically captures the human side of a technical challenge, underscoring a simple but powerful goal: to make cardiac imaging work for children, not the other way around.
Was your image created using Generative AI?
No.
How was your image created?
The image was captured using an iPhone 16 in portrait mode with natural lighting. After several attempts, I used the Live Photo feature, which captures a short video sequence before and after taking the picture, to better time the shot, then selected the precise frame that best conveyed the visible strain of the child trying to hold their breath. Though it was a simple setup, the process mirrored a key challenge in pediatric imaging: children naturally move, explore, and thus capturing a breath-holding pose took several tries, not because the child was uncooperative, but because staying still simply isn’t natural for them. This light-hearted moment subtly echoes the broader research problem: instead of expecting children to adapt to rigid scanning protocols, my work aims to adapt the imaging process to suit their needs.
Where is the image located?
This image was taken at the Department of Radiology and Diagnostic Imaging, located at University Terrace, University of Alberta. The photograph was captured and staged as part of a creative effort to visually represent a common challenge in pediatric cardiac imaging, breath-holding.