MRI with reconstruction of MR phase image

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10145925-B2
Application number	US-201515309337-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 7, 2015
Priority date	May 8, 2014
Publication date	Dec 4, 2018
Grant date	Dec 4, 2018

Abstract

A method for magnetic resonance (MR) phase imaging of a subject includes: (i) for each channel of a multi-channel MRI scanner, acquiring MR measurements at a plurality of voxels of the subject using a pulse sequence that reduces MR measurement phase error; and (ii) for each voxel, determining reconstructed MR phase from the MR measurements of each channel to form an MR phase image of the subject. The step of determining reconstructed MR phase may be performed for each of the voxels independently.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for magnetic resonance (MR) phase imaging of a subject, comprising:
for each channel of a multi-channel MRI scanner, acquiring MR measurements at a plurality of voxels of the subject using a pulse sequence that reduces MR measurement phase error; and
for each voxel, determining reconstructed MR phase from the MR measurements of each channel to form an MR phase image of the subject.

2. The method of claim 1 , the pulse sequence including parameters that are at least partially optimized with a phase-error predictor.

3. The method of claim 2 , the parameters including at least one of (a) pulse sequence echo times, (b) velocity-encoding gradients, and (c) motion-encoding gradients.

4. The method of claim 2 , further comprising, prior to the step of acquiring, at least partially optimizing the parameters using a phase-error predictor.

5. The method of claim 1 , the step of determining reconstructed MR phase being performed for each of the voxels independently.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining, at each voxel, a tissue property based upon the reconstructed MR phase at the voxel.

7. The method of claim 6 , the tissue property being at least one of tissue magnetic susceptibility, blood flow in tissue, cerebrospinal fluid in tissue, tissue elasticity, tissue temperature, tissue conductivity, and tissue oxygenation.

8. The method of claim 1 , the step of determining reconstructed MR phase comprising: applying, to the MR measurements, a phase-error predictor.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising for each channel:
removing the reconstructed MR phase from the MR measurements to form a plurality of remainder phase images; and
extracting a channel-dependent phase offset from the remainder phase images by utilizing channel-dependent phase offset properties that are independent of phase noise.

10. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
in the step of determining the reconstructed MR phase, determining the reconstructed MR phase from phase buildup between echoes of the pulse sequence;
for a plurality of combinations of channels and echoes, determining a respective plurality of phase-offset-corrected MR phases from the MR measurements and respective channel-dependent phase offsets; and
determining a refined reconstructed MR phase from the plurality of phase-offset-corrected MR phases.

11. The method of claim 10 , the step of determining the refined reconstructed MR phase comprising:
applying, to the plurality of phase-offset-corrected MR phases a phase-error predictor.

12. The method of claim 10 , the parameters including echoes of a pulse sequence, each echo being either an odd echo or an even echo based on its temporal position in the pulse sequence, the step of determining the reconstructed MR phase comprising:
determining the reconstructed MR phase from (i) phase buildup between odd echoes, (ii) phase buildup between even echoes, or (iii) phase buildup between odd echoes and phase buildup between even echoes.

13. A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system for forming an MR phase image of a subject, comprising:
a plurality of receiver channels for acquiring MR measurements;
at least one magnet for generating a magnetic field at the subject;
at least one transmitter for producing a radio frequency (RF) signal that excites nuclear magnetic resonances within a plurality of voxels of the subject;
a processor;
a non-volatile memory including:
pulse sequence parameters that reduce MR measurement phase error, and
non-transitory machine-readable instructions that, when executed by the processor, (i) for each of the receiver channels, acquire the MR measurements at the voxels according to the pulse sequence parameters, and (ii) for each of the voxels, determine a reconstructed MR phase from the MR measurements of each of the receiver channels to form the MR phase image; and

a pulse programmer for determining the RF signal according to the pulse sequence parameters.

14. The MRI system of claim 13 , the pulse sequence parameters including selected pulse sequence parameters that are at least partially optimized with a phase-error predictor.

15. The MRI system of claim 13 , the selected pulse sequence parameters including at least one of (a) pulse sequence echo times, (b) velocity-encoded gradients, and (c) motion gradients.

16. The MRI system of claim 13 , the instructions comprising instructions that, when executed by the processor, determine the reconstructed MR phase for each of the voxels independently.

17. The MRI system of claim 13 , the instructions further comprising instructions that when executed by the processor, determine, for each voxel, a tissue property of the voxel based upon the reconstructed MR phase at the voxel.

18. The MRI system of claim 17 , the tissue property being at least one of tissue magnetic susceptibility, blood flow in tissue, cerebrospinal fluid in tissue, tissue elasticity, and tissue temperature.

19. The MRI system of claim 13 , the instructions further comprising instructions that, when executed by the processor, determine the reconstructed MR phase by executing a phase-error predictor.

20. The MRI system of claim 13 , the instructions further comprising instructions that, when executed by the processor: (i) for each channel, remove the reconstructed MR phase from the MR measurements to form a plurality of remainder phase images; and (ii) for each channel, extract a channel-dependent phase offset from the remainder phase images by utilizing channel-dependent phase offset properties that are independent of phase noise.

21. The MRI system of claim 20 , the instructions further comprising instructions that when executed by the processor: (i) reconstruct the reconstructed MR phase from phase buildup between echoes of a pulse sequence at least partly characterized by the pulse sequence parameters; (ii) for a plurality of combinations of channels and echoes, determine a respective plurality of phase-offset-corrected MR phases from the MR measurements and respective channel-dependent phase offset; and (iii) determine a refined reconstructed MR phase from the plurality of phase-offset-corrected MR phases.

22. The MRI system of claim 21 , the pulse sequence parameters including echoes of a pulse sequence, each echo being either an odd echo or an even echo based on its temporal position in the sequence, the instructions further comprising instructions that when executed by the processor, determine the reconstructed MR phase from (i) phase buildup between odd echoes, (ii) phase buildup between even echoes, or (iii) phase buildup between odd echoes and phase buildup between even echoes.

Assignees

• Univ Arizona

Inventors

• Dagher Joseph

Classifications

• G01R33/5611

  Parallel magnetic resonance imaging, e.g. sensitivity encoding [SENSE], simultaneous acquisition of spatial harmonics [SMASH], unaliasing by Fourier encoding of the overlaps using the temporal dimension [UNFOLD], k-t-broad-use linear acquisition speed-up technique [k-t-BLAST], k-t-SENSE (structural details of arrays of sub-coils G01R33/3415) · CPC title

• G01R33/4804

  Spatially selective measurement of temperature or pH · CPC title

• G01R33/56366

  Perfusion imaging · CPC title

• G01R33/56316 Primary

  involving phase contrast techniques · CPC title

• G01R33/243

  Spatial mapping of the polarizing magnetic field · CPC title