Leland Stanford Junior University

Bruno Madore

Norbert Joseph Pelc

Gary H Glover

In some dynamic applications of MRI, only a part of the field-of-view (FOV) actually undergoes dynamic changes. A class of methods, called reduced-FOV (rFOV) methods, convert the knowledge that some part of the FOV is static or not very dynamic into an increase in temporal resolution for the dynamic part, or into a reduction in the scan time. Although cardiac imaging is an important example of an imaging situation where changes are concentrated into a fraction of the FOV, the rFOV methods developed up to now are not compatible with one of the most common cardiac sequences, the so-called retrospective cine method. The present work is a rFOV method designed to be compatible with cine imaging. An increase by a factor n in temporal resolution or a decrease by n in scan time is obtained in the case where only one n of the FOV is dynamic (the rest being considered static). Results are presented for both Cartesian and spiral imaging.

Reduced field-of-view method for cine magnetic resonance imaging

MRI is used to monitor the time behavior or an organ of interest. Images of such organ may change in time due to physiological motion, and/or due to contrast-agent accumulation. Dynamic applications generally involve acquiring data in a k-t space, which contains both temporal and spatial information. In some dynamic applications, the t axis of the k-t space is not densely filled with information. A method is introduced which can transfer information from the k axes to the t axis, allowing a denser, smaller k-t space to be acquired, and leading to significant reductions in the acquisition time of the temporal frames. Results are presented for cardiac imaging and functional MRI (fMRI). In the case of cardiac imaging, the present method is shown to reduce the data requirement by nearly a factor two. In the case of fMRI, reductions by as much as a factor six can be obtained. The behavior of the method is assessed by comparing the results to data obtained in a conventional way. Of course, the reductions in imaging time lead to the expected reductions in SNR. The present method can be used to significantly reduce the acquisition time of the individual temporal frames in certain dynamic studies. This can be used, for example, to increase the temporal and/or spatial resolution, increase the spatial coverage, decrease the total imaging time, or alter sequence parameters (e.g., TR and TE) and thereby alter contrast, depending on the circumstances.

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Bruno Madore