Variable-density parallel magnetic resonance imaging

US6903551B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• The Brigham and Women's Hospital, Inc. · US

Inventor

• Bruno Madore · Brookline, US

Key dates

• Filing date: May 1, 2003
• Grant date: Jun 7, 2005
• Expiry date: May 1, 2023

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G01R33/5611
• WIPO field: Measurement
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

A variable density non-Cartesian parallel-imaging method for reconstructing a magnetic resonance (MR) image is provided. In embodiments of the invention, an MR data set is obtained by sampling first and second sampling regions, wherein a first region is sampled with a first sampling density that is higher than a second sampling density of a second region. MR images corrupted by aliasing artifacts are reconstructed from the data obtained with each one of the coil-elements of a coil array. These images can be combined into one, de-aliased image using a modified version of Cartesian SENSE. The modification allows all the available k-space lines to be used in the processing, despite the fact that different k-space regions have different sampling densities (i.e. non-Cartesian sampling). Using all available lines is advantageous in terms of signal-to-noise ratio. Advantages of embodiments of the invention over previous methods also able to deal with non-Cartesian sampling schemes may include one or more of simplicity, ease of implementation, not having to fit sensitivities to target functions as part of the reconstruction, fast processing speed and/or the avoidance of possible errors res…