Siemens Healthineers Ag

King's College London

Raphael Tomi-Tricot

Radhouene Neji

Joseph Vilmos Hajnal

Shaihan Jalal Malik

Iulius Dragonu

David Leitão

Belinda Ding Yuan

Ali Aghaeifar

A method for optimization of an RF pulse that is multi-band. The RF pulse is a spokes RF pulse including a train of sub-pulses. The method includes using a starting k-space position as a current k-space position, and for each of slices to be excited by the RF pulse, performing: calculating a sub-pulse based on the current k-space position and calculating an expected magnetization after that sub-pulse; calculating an inverse Fourier transform of a difference between an expected magnetization and a target magnetization; and determining an optimal k-space position for a next spoke for this slice to be at a position where an absolute value of the inverse Fourier transform has a maximum. A next k-space position is determined for all slices together based on the optimal k-space positions determined for each slice individually. A multi-band RF pulse is determined based on the determined k-space positions.

Method for subject-specific optimization of a multi-band RF pulse

A method of operating a magnetic resonance scanner includes determining a radio frequency (RF) pulse to be transmitted to jointly homogenize a flip angle and a semisolid saturation that would result from magnetization of a sample to be scanned by the MR scanner using the determined RF pulse. The method also includes controlling an RF transmit coil of the MR scanner to transmit the determined pulse. Homogenizing both semisolid saturation and excitation properties of the RF pulse allows for improved magnetic transfer ratio imaging.

Method of operating a magnetic resonance scanner

A computer-implemented magnetic resonance image optimisation method is disclosed. An image of an object is mapped using a static magnetic field and divided into a plurality of voxels. Each voxel is represented in a Euclidean n-dimensional space, where n≥3, and clustered by grouping together voxels having similar characteristics to create homogenous clusters. The centre or centroid of each cluster is determined, and used, or the voxel closest to either the centre or the centroid is used, as a super-voxel in an optimisation procedure. An optimised diagnostic image of the object is then generated.

Computer-implemented magnetic resonance image optimisation method

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London, United Kingdom

Raphael Tomi-Tricot