Mooiweer, Ronald;
Clark, Ian A;
Maguire, Eleanor A;
Callaghan, Martina F;
Hajnal, Joseph V;
Malik, Shaihan J;
(2022)
Universal pulses for homogeneous excitation using single channel coils.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
, 92
pp. 180-186.
10.1016/j.mri.2022.07.002.
Preview |
PDF
1-s2.0-S0730725X22001126-main.pdf - Published Version Download (2MB) | Preview |
Abstract
PURPOSE: Universal Pulses (UPs) are excitation pulses that reduce the flip angle inhomogeneity in high field MRI systems without subject-specific optimization, originally developed for parallel transmit (PTX) systems at 7 T. We investigated the potential benefits of UPs for single channel (SC) transmit systems at 3 T, which are widely used for clinical and research imaging, and for which flip angle inhomogeneity can still be problematic. METHODS: SC-UPs were designed using a spiral nonselective k-space trajectory for brain imaging at 3 T using transmit field maps (B1+) and off-resonance maps (B0) acquired on two different scanner types: a 'standard' single channel transmit system and a system with a PTX body coil. The effect of training group size was investigated using data (200 subjects) from the standard system. The PTX system was used to compare SC-UPs to PTX-UPs (15 subjects). In two additional subjects, prospective imaging using SC-UP was studied. RESULTS: Average flip angle homogeneity error fell from 9.5 ± 0.5 % for 'default' excitation to 3.0 ± 0.6 % using SC-UPs trained over 50 subjects. Performance of the UPs was found to steadily improve as training group size increased, but stabilized after ~15 subjects. On the PTX-enabled system, SC-UPs again outperformed default excitation in simulations (4.8 ± 0.6 % error versus 10.6 ± 0.8 % respectively) though greater homogenization could be achieved with PTX-UPs (3.9 ± 0.6 %) and personalized pulses (SC-PP 3.6 ± 1.0 %, PTX-PP 2.9 ± 0.6 %). MP-RAGE imaging using SC-UP resulted in greater separation between grey and white matter signal intensities than default excitation. CONCLUSIONS: SC-UPs can improve excitation homogeneity in standard 3 T systems without further calibration and could be used instead of a default excitation pulse for nonselective neuroimaging at 3 T.
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
