Combining unfold with parallel magnetic resonance imaging
AssigneeThe Brigham and Women's Hospital, Inc.
InventorBruno Madore
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method for combining UNFOLD with a parallel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique, such as SMASH, SENSE, or SPACE-RIP is provided. When acquiring only one nth of the usual amount of k-space data, data is acquired n times faster, but n signals will overlap in the resulting images. By spreading the n signals over all of the available temporal frequency bandwidth, UNFOLD reduces the amount of overlap to n/2. A parallel imaging method with an acceleration n/2 can finish the reconstruction by separating the n/2 overlapped signals. The result is a time series of non-corrupted images that are acquired n times faster than normal.
Claims20
A method for combining an UNFOLD technique with a parallel MR imaging to obtain an MR image of an object, the method comprising:
- a) obtaining first k-space information about the object at a first time point and a first set of k-space locations;
- b) obtaining second k-space information about the object at a second time point and a second set of k-space locations, wherein at least one of the k-space locations in said second set is not contained in said first set;
- c) decomposing time variations of data associated with the first and second k-space information into a corresponding frequency content;
- d) for a first frequency of the frequency content, performing first parallel imaging to separate aliased and the non-aliased components that are overlapped;
- and
- e) for a second frequency of the frequency content, performing second parallel imaging to separate the aliased and non-aliased components that are overlapped, the second parallel imaging being different from the first parallel imaging.
A method for combining an UNFOLD technique with a parallel MR imaging to obtain an MR image of an object, the method comprising:
- a) obtaining first k-space information about the object at a first time point and a first set of k-space locations;
- b) obtaining second k-space information about the object at a second time point and a second set of k-space locations, wherein at least one of the k-space locations in said second set is not contained in said first set;
- c) decomposing time variations of data associated with the first and second k-space information into a corresponding frequency content;
- d) for a first frequency of the frequency content, performing first parallel imaging that ignores a first set of components that includes at least one of aliased and non-aliased components that do not exist at the first frequency;
- and
- e) for a second frequency of the frequency content, performing second parallel imaging that ignores a second set of components that includes at least one of aliased and non-aliased components that do not exist at the second frequency, the first and second sets being different and the first and second frequencies being different.
A computer program product residing on a computer-readable medium and comprising computer-readable, computer-executable instructions for combining an UNFOLD technique with parallel MR imaging to obtain an MR image of an object by causing a computer to:
- (a) obtain first k-space information about the object at a first time point and a first set of k-space locations;
- (b) obtain second k-space information about the object at a second time point and a second set of k-space locations, wherein at least one of the k-space locations in said second set is not contained in said first set;
- (c) decompose time variations of data associated with the first and second k-space information into a corresponding frequency content;
- (d) for a first frequency of the frequency content, perform first parallel imaging to separate aliased and non-aliased components that are overlapped;
- and
- (e) for a second frequency of the frequency content, perform second parallel imaging to separate the aliased and non-aliased components that are overlapped, the second parallel imaging being different from the first parallel imaging.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.