T2* Measurement bias due to concomitant gradient fields

Compensation of concomitant field effects in double diffusion encoding by means of added oscillating gradients

Maxwell or concomitant fields imprint additional phases on the transverse magnetization. This concomitant phase may cause severe image artifacts like signal voids or distort the quantitative parameters due to the induced intravoxel dephasing. In particular, double diffusion encoding (DDE) schemes with two pairs of bipolar diffusion-weighting gradients separated by a refocusing radiofrequency (RF) pulse are prone to concomitant field-induced artifacts. In this work, a method for reducing concomitant field effects in these DDE sequences based on additional oscillating gradients is presented. These oscillating gradient pulses obtained by constrained optimization were added to the original gradient waveforms. The modified sequences reduced the accumulated concomitant phase without significant changes in the original sequence characteristics. The proposed method was applied to a DDE acquisition scheme consisting of 60 pairs of diffusion wave vectors. For phantom as well as for in vivo experiments, a considerable increase in the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was obtained. For phantom measurements with a diffusion weighting of b = 2000 s/mm2 for each of the gradient pairs, an SNR increase of up to 40% was observed for a transversal slice that had a distance of 5 cm from the isocenter. For equivalent slice parameters, in vivo measurements in the brain of a healthy volunteer exhibited an increase in SNR of up to 35% for b = 750 s/mm2 for each weighting. These findings are supported by corresponding simulations, which also predict a positive effect on the SNR. In summary, the presented method leads to an SNR gain without additional RF refocusing pulses.

Multi-site repeatability and reproducibility of MR fingerprinting of the healthy brain at 1.5 and 3.0 T

Fully-quantitative MR imaging methods are useful for longitudinal characterization of disease and assessment of treatment efficacy. However, current quantitative MRI protocols have not been widely adopted in the clinic, mostly due to lengthy scan times. Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting (MRF) is a new technique that can reconstruct multiple parametric maps from a single fast acquisition in the transient state of the MR signal. Due to the relative novelty of this technique, the repeatability and reproducibility of quantitative measurements obtained using MRF has not been extensively studied. Our study acquired test/retest data from the brains of nine healthy volunteers, each scanned on five MRI systems (two at 3.0 T and three at 1.5 T, all from a single vendor) located at two different centers. The pulse sequence and reconstruction algorithm were the same for all acquisitions. After registration of the MRF-derived M0, T1 and T2 maps to an anatomical atlas, coefficients-of-variation (CVs) were computed to assess test/retest repeatability and inter-site reproducibility in each voxel, while a General Linear Model (GLM) was used to determine the voxel-wise variability between all confounders, which included test/retest, subject, field strength and site. Our analysis demonstrated an excellent repeatability (CVs of 2-3% for T1, 5-8% for T2, 3% for normalized-M0) and a good reproducibility (CVs of 3-8% for T1, 8-14% for T2, 5% for normalized-M0) in grey and white matter.

Correction of phase errors in quantitative water-fat imaging using a monopolar time-interleaved multi-echo gradient echo sequence

PURPOSE

To propose a phase error correction scheme for monopolar time-interleaved multi-echo gradient echo water-fat imaging that allows accurate and robust complex-based quantification of the proton density fat fraction (PDFF).

METHODS

A three-step phase correction scheme is proposed to address a) a phase term induced by echo misalignments that can be measured with a reference scan using reversed readout polarity, b) a phase term induced by the concomitant gradient field that can be predicted from the gradient waveforms, and c) a phase offset between time-interleaved echo trains. Simulations were carried out to characterize the concomitant gradient field-induced PDFF bias and the performance estimating the phase offset between time-interleaved echo trains. Phantom experiments and in vivo liver and thigh imaging were performed to study the relevance of each of the three phase correction steps on PDFF accuracy and robustness.

RESULTS

The simulation, phantom, and in vivo results showed in agreement with the theory an echo time-dependent PDFF bias introduced by the three phase error sources. The proposed phase correction scheme was found to provide accurate PDFF estimation independent of the employed echo time combination.

CONCLUSION

Complex-based time-interleaved water-fat imaging was found to give accurate and robust PDFF measurements after applying the proposed phase error correction scheme. Magn Reson Med 78:984-996, 2017. © 2016 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

The effects of concomitant gradients on chemical shift encoded MRI

PURPOSE

The purpose of this work was to characterize the effects of concomitant gradients (CGs) on chemical shift encoded (CSE)-based estimation of B₀ field map, proton density fat fraction (PDFF), and R2*.

THEORY

A theoretical framework was used to determine the effects of CG-induced phase errors on CSE-MRI data.

METHODS

Simulations, phantom experiments, and in vivo experiments were conducted at 3 Tesla to assess the effects of CGs on quantitative CSE-MRI techniques. Correction of phase errors attributable to CGs was also investigated to determine whether these effects could be removed.

RESULTS

Phase errors attributed to CGs introduce errors in the estimation of B₀ field map, PDFF, and R2*. Phantom and in vivo experiments demonstrated that CGs can introduce estimation errors greater than 30 Hz in the B₀ field map, 10% in PDFF, and 16 s^-1 in R2*, 16 cm off isocenter. However, CG phase correction before parameter estimation was able to reduce estimation errors to less than 10 Hz in the B₀ field map, 1% in PDFF, and 2 s^-1 in R2*.

CONCLUSION

CG effects can impact CSE-MRI, leading to inaccurate estimation of B₀ field map, PDFF, and R2*. However, correction for phase errors caused by CGs improve the accuracy of quantitative parameters estimated from CSE-MRI acquisitions. Magn Reson Med 78:730-738, 2017. © 2016 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.