Spiral imaging artifact reduction: A comparison of two k-trajectory measurement methods

Hyperpolarized (129) Xe imaging of the rat lung using spiral IDEAL

PURPOSE

To implement and optimize a single-shot spiral encoding strategy for rapid 2D IDEAL projection imaging of hyperpolarized (Hp) (129) Xe in the gas phase, and in the pulmonary tissue (PT) and red blood cells (RBCs) compartments of the rat lung, respectively.

THEORY AND METHODS

A theoretical and experimental point spread function analysis was used to optimize the spiral k-space read-out time in a phantom. Hp (129) Xe IDEAL images from five healthy rats were used to: (i) optimize flip angles by a Bloch equation analysis using measured kinetics of gas exchange and (ii) investigate the feasibility of the approach to characterize the exchange of Hp (129) Xe.

RESULTS

A read-out time equal to approximately 1.8 × T2* was found to provide the best trade-off between spatial resolution and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Spiral IDEAL approaches that use the entire dissolved phase magnetization should give an SNR improvement of a factor of approximately three compared with Cartesian approaches with similar spatial resolution. The IDEAL strategy allowed imaging of gas, PT, and RBC compartments with sufficient SNR and temporal resolution to permit regional gas exchange measurements in healthy rats.

CONCLUSION

Single-shot spiral IDEAL imaging of gas, PT and RBC compartments and gas exchange is feasible in rat lung using Hp (129) Xe. Magn Reson Med 76:566-576, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Field camera measurements of gradient and shim impulse responses using frequency sweeps

PURPOSE

Applications of dynamic shimming require high field fidelity, and characterizing the shim field dynamics is therefore necessary. Modeling the system as linear and time-invariant, the purpose of this work was to measure the impulse response function with optimal sensitivity.

THEORY AND METHODS

Frequency-swept pulses as inputs are analyzed theoretically, showing that the sweep speed is a key factor for the measurement sensitivity. By adjusting the sweep speed it is possible to achieve any prescribed noise profile in the measured system response. Impulse response functions were obtained for the third-order shim system of a 7 Tesla whole-body MR scanner. Measurements of the shim fields were done with a dynamic field camera, yielding also cross-term responses.

RESULTS

The measured shim impulse response functions revealed system characteristics such as response bandwidth, eddy currents and specific resonances, possibly of mechanical origin. Field predictions based on the shim characterization were shown to agree well with directly measured fields, also in the cross-terms.

CONCLUSION

Frequency sweeps provide a flexible tool for shim or gradient system characterization. This may prove useful for applications involving dynamic shimming by yielding accurate estimates of the shim fields and a basis for setting shim pre-emphasis.

Analysis and correction of background velocity offsets in phase-contrast flow measurements using magnetic field monitoring

The value of phase-contrast magnetic resonance imaging for quantifying tissue motion and blood flow has been long recognized. However, the sensitivity of the method to system imperfections can lead to inaccuracies limiting its clinical acceptance. A key source of error relates to eddy current-induced phase fluctuations, which can offset the measured object velocity significantly. A higher-order dynamic field camera was used to study the spatiotemporal evolution of background phases in cine phase-contrast measurements. It is demonstrated that eddy current-induced offsets in phase-difference data are present up to the second spatial order. Oscillatory temporal behaviors of offsets in the kHz range suggest mechanical resonances of the MR system to be non-negligible in phase-contrast imaging. By careful selection of the echo time, their impact can be significantly reduced. When applying field monitoring data for correcting eddy current and mechanically induced velocity offsets, errors decrease to less than 0.5% of the maximum velocity for various sequence settings proving the robustness of the correction approach. In vivo feasibility is demonstrated for aortic and pulmonary flow measurements in five healthy subjects. Using field monitoring data, mean error in stroke volume was reduced from 10% to below 3%.

Robust spatially selective excitation using radiofrequency pulses adapted to the effective spatially encoding magnetic fields

Multidimensional spatially selective excitation (SSE) has stimulated a variety of useful applications in magnetic resonance imaging and magnetic resonance spectroscopy, which have regained considerable interest after the recent introduction of parallel excitation. For SSE, radiofrequency pulses are designed specifically for certain time-courses of spatially encoding magnetic fields (SEM) which are applied simultaneously with the radiofrequency pulses. However, experimental imperfections of gradient-systems and undesired SEM field contributions often prevent the correct co-action of radiofrequency pulses and gradient-waveforms and therefore degrade the fidelity of excitation patterns, especially for parallel excitation. To cope with such imperfections, a classical measurement of k-space-trajectories can be performed followed by an adaptation of the SSE-pulses. However, this method is limited to linear SEM field distributions, which are describable in the k-space-formalism. Hence, this work presents a more sophisticated method consisting in a spatially resolved measurement of the temporal phase evolution of the transverse magnetization. This exhaustive phase information can be incorporated into pulse-design algorithms to compensate even for undesired spatially nonlinear, dynamic SEM field contributions. Both approaches are assessed in various experimental scenarios and individual benefits and limitations are discussed. The adaptation of SSE-pulses to experimentally achieved calibration data turned out to be very beneficial, and especially the novel spatially resolved method exhibited high potential for robust SSE even in adverse experimental setups.

Spiral demystified

Spiral acquisition schemes offer unique advantages such as flow compensation, efficient k-space sampling and robustness against motion that make this option a viable choice among other non-Cartesian sampling schemes. For this reason, the main applications of spiral imaging lie in dynamic magnetic resonance imaging such as cardiac imaging and functional brain imaging. However, these advantages are counterbalanced by practical difficulties that render spiral imaging quite challenging. Firstly, the design of gradient waveforms and its hardware requires specific attention. Secondly, the reconstruction of such data is no longer straightforward because k-space samples are no longer aligned on a Cartesian grid. Thirdly, to take advantage of parallel imaging techniques, the common generalized autocalibrating partially parallel acquisitions (GRAPPA) or sensitivity encoding (SENSE) algorithms need to be extended. Finally, and most notably, spiral images are prone to particular artifacts such as blurring due to gradient deviations and off-resonance effects caused by B(0) inhomogeneity and concomitant gradient fields. In this article, various difficulties that spiral imaging brings along, and the solutions, which have been developed and proposed in literature, will be reviewed in detail.