Other

Junmin Liu

Maria Drangova

To perform Dixon MRI, generate multi-contrast images, and extract multi-parametric maps, this invention presents a multi-echo gradient echo protocol with two sets of echo trains. An example implementation of the invention at 3 T acquires a short-TE train (&#x394;TE&#x2dc;1.2 ms, TE&#x3c;10 ms), which is used to map B0 inhomogeneity and proton density fat fraction (FF), and a second&#x2014;susceptibility sensitive&#x2014;long-TE train (16 ms&#x3c;TE&#x3c;45 ms) will enable quantification of local frequency shift (LFS) and susceptibility. The presented pipeline automatically generates co-registered images and maps with/without fat-suppressed, including magnitude- and complex-based FF map, B0 map, anatomical images, brain mask, R2* map, unwrapped phase maps for each echo, susceptibility-sensitive images (SWI, LFS and quantitative susceptibility) for each echo, mean susceptibility-sensitive images for each echo-train. The invention is directly applicable to whole head/neck, liver, knee or even whole body scans with sliding table.

Method for dixon MRI, multi-contrast imaging and multi-parametric mapping with a single multi-echo gradient-recalled echo acquisition

Various embodiments of the present disclosure present unwrapping based B0 mapping systems and methods. An initial B0 map is obtained by unwrapping a pseudo-in-phase complex data that is generated from selected echoes of multi-echo gradient echo image data. Global and local phase errors that are present in the initial B0 map are corrected to produce a phase-error-corrected B0 map. A bias frequency shift is employed to produce a corrected fat-fraction map based on the phase-error-corrected B0 map. The corrected fat-fraction map is employed to generate a final B0 map.

Growing community of inventors

London, Canada

Junmin Liu