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MIRAGE: Patient-Specific Mixed Reality Coaching for MRI via Depth-Only Markerless Registration and Immersive VR

Daniel Brooks, Emily Carter, Hu Guo, Rajesh Nair

TL;DR

The paper tackles MRI-induced anxiety and motion artifacts by introducing MIRAGE, a system that combines depth-only, markerless registration with immersive VR coaching to prepare patients for MRI. It leverages a dual-headset setup (HoloLens 2 for clinicians and Quest 2 for patients) with a server‑based depth-processing pipeline to achieve sub-centimeter alignment accuracy and a realistic simulated bore experience. The work provides a detailed hardware/software stack, calibration workflow, extended evaluation metrics, and clinical deployment considerations, reporting favorable usability scores and meaningful anxiety reduction in a pilot cohort. The findings suggest that MIRAGE can streamline MRI preparation, reduce reliance on pharmacological sedation, and integrate with hospital workflows, paving the way for larger trials and on-device processing in the future.

Abstract

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an indispensable diagnostic tool, yet the confined bore and acoustic noise can evoke considerable anxiety and claustrophobic reactions. High anxiety leads to motion artifacts, incomplete scans and reliance on pharmacological sedation. MIRAGE (Mixed Reality Anxiety Guidance Environment) harnesses the latest mixed reality (MR) hardware to prepare patients for MRI through immersive virtual reality (VR) and markerless augmented reality (AR) registration. In this paper, we extend our previous work by providing a comprehensive review of related research, detailing the system architecture, and exploring metrics for patient and clinician experience. We also present considerations for clinical deployment of MR systems within hospital workflows. Our results indicate that depth-based registration achieves sub-centimeter accuracy with minimal setup, while the immersive coaching environment reduces patient anxiety and yields favourable usability scores.

MIRAGE: Patient-Specific Mixed Reality Coaching for MRI via Depth-Only Markerless Registration and Immersive VR

TL;DR

The paper tackles MRI-induced anxiety and motion artifacts by introducing MIRAGE, a system that combines depth-only, markerless registration with immersive VR coaching to prepare patients for MRI. It leverages a dual-headset setup (HoloLens 2 for clinicians and Quest 2 for patients) with a server‑based depth-processing pipeline to achieve sub-centimeter alignment accuracy and a realistic simulated bore experience. The work provides a detailed hardware/software stack, calibration workflow, extended evaluation metrics, and clinical deployment considerations, reporting favorable usability scores and meaningful anxiety reduction in a pilot cohort. The findings suggest that MIRAGE can streamline MRI preparation, reduce reliance on pharmacological sedation, and integrate with hospital workflows, paving the way for larger trials and on-device processing in the future.

Abstract

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an indispensable diagnostic tool, yet the confined bore and acoustic noise can evoke considerable anxiety and claustrophobic reactions. High anxiety leads to motion artifacts, incomplete scans and reliance on pharmacological sedation. MIRAGE (Mixed Reality Anxiety Guidance Environment) harnesses the latest mixed reality (MR) hardware to prepare patients for MRI through immersive virtual reality (VR) and markerless augmented reality (AR) registration. In this paper, we extend our previous work by providing a comprehensive review of related research, detailing the system architecture, and exploring metrics for patient and clinician experience. We also present considerations for clinical deployment of MR systems within hospital workflows. Our results indicate that depth-based registration achieves sub-centimeter accuracy with minimal setup, while the immersive coaching environment reduces patient anxiety and yields favourable usability scores.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 20 sections, 3 figures, 2 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related Work
  3. Augmented Reality and Markerless Registration
  4. Mixed Reality in Medical Training and Planning
  5. Virtual Reality for Anxiety Reduction
  6. Methods
  7. Hardware Setup
  8. Software Stack
  9. User Interface Design
  10. Calibration Procedure
  11. Error Handling
  12. Data Streaming Architecture
  13. Expanded Evaluation Metrics
  14. Clinical Integration and Deployment
  15. Hospital IT Compatibility
  16. ...and 5 more sections

Figures (3)

  • Figure 1: System architecture showing data streaming between the HoloLens 2, the processing server and the Quest 2.
  • Figure 2: Calibration workflow for depth‑only markerless registration.
  • Figure 3: Comparison of normalised evaluation metrics between MIRAGE and a baseline (no VR coaching). Higher values are better for all metrics except anxiety reduction, which is inverted such that larger values indicate greater reduction.