The main thrusts of my research are the development of advanced cardiac MRI techniques to quantify the contractile function of the heart and the development of semi-automated image processing methods for segmentation of myocardial contours. The integrative goal is to develop a high spatial resolution MRI method that can quantify the regional function of the heart with minimal user interaction, in order to utilize it as an early diagnostic tool to detect myocardial wall motion abnormalities due to heart disease. These techniques are being developed on Siemens 1.3T and 3T whole-body imaging systems. In one project, we are developing a high spatial resolution method called cine displacement-encoded MRI to quantify the 2D myocardial wall motion. Our latest work includes rapid imaging methods, such as b-SSFP and TSENSE parallel imaging, to improve the data acquisition efficiency. This latest development provides a means to study wall motion abnormalities due to heart disease within a clinically feasible breath-hold duration of 12 hearbeats per 2D image acquisition. The accuracy of this method will be validated against a reference method by imaging a rotating phantom and human subjects. In another project, we are developing semi-automated image processing methods for segmentation of myocardial contours, which are inherently difficult to segment owing to the rough endocardial surface and the juxtaposition of the inferior myocardial wall and liver. We are exploring both the model-based and statistics-based models to semi-automate the segmentation of both endocardial and epicardial contours. In other projects, we are developing new MRI methods to improve the quantification of myocardial perfusion and viability.