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. 2023 Nov 9:14:1281147.
doi: 10.3389/fphys.2023.1281147. eCollection 2023.

The relaxometry hype cycle

Nikola Stikov  1   2   3 , Agâh Karakuzu  1   2
Affiliations

The relaxometry hype cycle

Nikola Stikov et al. Front Physiol. .

Abstract

Relaxometry is a field with a glorious and controversial history, and no review will ever do it justice. It is full of egos and inventions, patents and lawsuits, high expectations and deep disillusionments. Rather than a paragraph dedicated to each of these, we want to give it an impressionistic overview, painted over with a coat of personal opinions and ruminations about the future of the field. For those unfamiliar with the Gartner hype cycle, here's a brief recap. The cycle starts with a technology trigger and goes through a phase of unrealistically inflated expectations. Eventually the hype dies down as implementations fail to deliver on their promise, and disillusionment sets in. Technologies that manage to live through the trough reach the slope of enlightenment, when there is a flurry of second and third generation products that make the initial promise feel feasible again. Finally, we reach the slope of productivity, where mainstream adoption takes off, and more incremental progress is made, eventually reaching steady state in terms of the technology's visibility. The entire interactive timeline can be viewed at https://qmrlab.org/relaxometry/.

Keywords: MRI; T1 mapping; T2 mapping; quantitative MRI (qMRI); relaxometry; reproducibility.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
The five stages of the hype cycle. For an interactive version of this figure that features the cited research articles, please visit: https://qmrlab.org/relaxometry/.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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