Motion correction for magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) with 3D radial acquisitions

A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) method for effecting magnetic resonance (MR) images with reduced motion artifacts, said MRI method comprising:

• placing an object into an MRI gantry including a static magnetic field coil, gradient magnetic field coils, at least one radio frequency (RF) coil configured to transmit RF signals into an imaging volume and/or to receive nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) RF signals from said object when located in the imaging volume;
• acquiring a plurality of k-space data sets, each k-space data set being acquired by traversing a plurality of radial trajectories of locations in three-dimensional (3D) k-space;
• generating a plurality of 3D MR images, each 3D MR image derived from a k-space populated by a respective one of the k-space data sets;
• aligning the 3D MR images with respect to each other;
• determining one or more motion parameters for the object based upon the aligning;
• modifying, using the determined one or more motion parameters, values of at least one of the acquired k-space data sets;
• generating a motion-corrected 3D MR image by constructing it from a set of corrected sets of acquired k-space data including the modified values;
• and
• outputting the motion-corrected 3D MR image to a display, a data storage, or to a data transmission port.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium, having executable computer program instructions recorded thereon, which when executed by at least one processor of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system having an MRI gantry including a static magnetic field coil, gradient magnetic field coils, at least one radio frequency (RF) coil configured to transmit RF signals into an imaging volume and/or to receive nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) RF signals from an object located in the imaging volume, causes the at least one processor to generate a diagnostic image having reduced motion artifacts, by performing operations comprising:

• acquiring a plurality of k-space data sets, each k-space data set being acquired by traversing a plurality of radial trajectories of locations in three-dimensional (3D) k-space;
• generating a plurality of 3D MR images, each 3D MR image derived from a k-space populated by a respective one of the k-space data sets;
• aligning the 3D MR images with respect to each other;
• determining one or more motion parameters for the object based upon the aligning;
• modifying, using the determined one or more motion parameters, values of at least one of the acquired k-space data sets;
• generating a motion-corrected 3D MR image by constructing it from a set of corrected sets of acquired k-space data including the modified values;
• and
• outputting the motion-corrected 3D MR image to a display, a data storage, or to a data transmission port.