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sbmID=786

Motion Artifacts Reduction by Parallel Acquisition with Non-prolonged Deghosting Algorithm

(PANDA)
Gaojie Zhu1, Xiang Zhou1, Hai Luo1, Bin Wang1, Xia Liu1, Ziyue Wu2, Leping Zha1,2, and Qing-San Xiang3

1Advanced Application, Alltech Medical Systems, Chengdu, China, People's Republic of, 2Advanced Application, Alltech Medical
Systems America, Cleveland, OH, United States, 3Radiology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Synopsis
Patient motion produces artifacts in MRI due to k-space data corruption. Ghosted images can be considered as a
combination of ghost-free images and ghost masks. If two ghosted images contain the same ghost-free image component
and di឴erent ghost components, the images and the ghost components can be separated. For images fully sampled with
array coils, multiple images can be produced with parallel reconstruction with di឴erently selected raw data subsets. In this
work, we propose a new motion artifacts reduction algorithm, which regenerates a new k-space dataset based on data
consistency, and then decomposes images into mostly ghost-free images and ghost masks.

Purpose
A data regeneration and image-ghost decomposition based algorithm is developed to reduce motion artifacts, such as
those due to pulsate ឴ow or respiration in abdominal imaging.

Introduction
Patient motion produces artifacts in MR images due to data corruption among di឴erent portions of k-space. Motions, such
as cardiovascular pulsation and respiratory movements introduce corruption in k-space data, especially in time-consuming
acquisitions such as fast spin echo imaging. A two-point interference method was previously introduced to decompose a
ghosted image into a ghost-free image and a ghost mask[1-3]. However, this method requires more than one acquisitions
with prolonged scan time. It is also less e឴ective with uncorrelated motion modulations as seen in some clinical cases.
Partial parallel imaging (PPI) makes use of spatial sensitivity di឴erences between individual coils in coil arrays to generate
new k-space data[4, 5]. In a fully sampled image acquired with multiple coils, there is a great deal of data redundancy. Such
redundancy from parallel acquisition and reconstruction has been utilized to reduce motion artifacts with success of
di឴erent degree[6-10]. In this work, we propose a new motion reduction method, which regenerates the k-space data
based on data consistency and decomposes the ghosted images into a ghost-free image and a ghost mask.

Method
Data regeneration with GRAPPA: Data was acquired on 1.5T Comfort scanner (Alltech Medical Systems, Chengdu, China).
Abdominal images were acquired with multiple-shot fast spin echo sequence with echo train length of 16 and respiratory
triggering. The experiments on human subjects were approved by the Alltech Review boards. For data regeneration,
special k-space convolution kernels[9] derived from the fully sampled central k-space data, as shown in Fig. 1, were
[5]
applied. The kernel size was 7x7 in this work, and the data regeneration process was analogous to GRAPPA with an
acceleration factor of 1.2.

Image-Ghost decomposition: A ghosted image I1 can be considered as a combination of two complex components, a
desired ghost-free image components I0 as temporal average of the magnetization, and a ghost component g1. The
proposed convolution operation recovers most of the image component with little SNR penalty while smooth the motional
modulation, resulting in a di឴erently ghosted image I2 containing the same image component I0 but a di឴erent ghost
component g2. A pair of ghosted complex images before and after convolution can be expressed as:

I 1 = I 0 + g1 (1)

I 2 = I 0 + g2 (2)

g2 = C ⋆ g1 (3)

Where I1 is the acquired ghosted image, I0 is the desired ghost-free image, g1 is a ghost mask within the acquired image.
An intermediate image I2 is generated from k-space convolution with kernel K from central k-space calibration. When the
kernel is large enough (true for the case), the SNR penalty is not obvious and thus the same I0 is present in I2. g2 is an

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altered ghost mask in the intermediate ghosted image I2. The relationship between two ghost masks g2 and g1 can be
described with equation (4) and illustrated with Fig. 2. C is a spatially varying complex number due to kernel convolution on
motional modulation, determined from the kernel as:

C = ∑ I F F T (K ) (4)

Where N is the total number of coil elements. A direct solution for (I0, g1) can be found as:

−1
I0 a b I1
( ) = [ ] ( ) (5)
g1 c d I2

Where the superscripts “-1” denotes matrix inversion operation. The entire procedure is iteratively repeated for improved
deghosting performance.

Results
Figure 3 shows the results of the proposed algorithm on abdomen data corrupted by respiratory motion. Motion induced
ghosting artifacts were obviously seen within the directly reconstructed image (Fig. 3a). The motion artifacts were
e឴ectively reduced (Fig.3b) after three iterations of the proposed process. The ghost-to-signal ratios were 0.11 and 0.01
before and after correction, respectively. Ghost masks (Fig. 3c-d) decomposed from ghosted images also visually show
artifact reduction e឴ects. Figure 4 shows results of the proposed algorithm on another abdominal scan corrupted mainly
by pulsate ឴ow. With the proposed technique, the artifacts were e឴ectively suppressed (Fig. 4a-b), with measured ghost-to-
signal ratios of 0.19 and 0.03 before and after the correction respectively. Artifacts reduction is clearly observed in the
decomposed ghosted masks (Fig. 4c-d).

Conclusion and discussion

A data regeneration and image-ghost decomposition based method, PANDA, is developed to reduce motion artifacts. It is
possible to further enhance the proposed algorithm. For example, multiple copies of ghosted images can be regenerated
for enhanced artifacts reduction during image-ghost decomposition, and PANDA can be combined with accelerated PPI[5]
[2]
for faster acquisition. It is also possible to impose extra constraint of image quality control, such as regional GEM , during
the image-ghost decomposition process.

Acknowledgements
No acknowledgement found.

References
[1] Xiang QS, Bronskill MS. Henkelman KM. Two-point interference method for suppression of ghost artifact due to motion.
J. Magn. Reson. Imaging. 3, 900-906 (1993).

[2] Chavez S, Xiang QS. Improved Ghost Suppression by Two-Parameter Gradient Energy Minimization. In: Proc 7th Annual
Meeting ISMRM, Philadelphia; 1999 (Abstract #1999).

[3] Chavez S, Xiang QS. Fast Ghost Suppression Using 1.5 or Fewer Excitations. In: Proc 7th Annual Meeting ISMRM,
Philadelphia; 1999 (Abstract #239).

[4] Pruessmann KP, Weiger M, Scheidegger MB, Boesiger P, SENSE: Sensitivity Encoding for Fast MRI. Magn. Reson. Med.
42, 952–962 (1999).

[5] Griswold MA, Jakob PM, Heidemann RM, Mathias Nittka, Jellus V,Wang J, Kiefer B, Haase A. Generalized autocalibrating
partially parallel acquisitions (GRAPPA). Magn. Reson. Med. 47, 1202-1210 (2002).

[6] Bydder M, Larkman DJ, Hajnal JV. Detection and elimination of motion artifacts by regeneration of k-space. Magn.
Reson. Med. 47, 677–686 (2002).

[7] Atkinson D, Larkman DJ, Batchelor PG, Hill DLG, Hajnal JV. Coil based artifact reduction. Magn. Reson. Med. 52, 825-830
(2004).

[8] Fautz HP, Honal M, Saueressig U, Schafer O, Kannengiesser SAR. Artifact reduction in moving-table acquisitions using
parallel imaging and multiple averages. Magn. Reson. Med. 57, 226-232 (2007).

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[9] Huang F, Lin W, Bornert P, Li Y, Reykowski A. Data Convolution and Combination Operation (COCOA) for Motion Ghost
Artifacts Reduction. Magn. Reson. Med. 64, 157-166 (2010).

[10] Rui Li, Shujing Cao, Feng Huang, Chun Yuan. Retrospective motion correction for carotid vessel wall imaging. In: Proc
23rd Annual Meeting ISMRM, Toronto;2015 (Abstract #4524).

Figures

Fig. 1. Example of the proposed PANDA k-space motion modulation smoothing convolution kernel. Four channels are
illustrated for demonstration, although 15 channels were applied in our experiments. Colors of the data points indicates
interleaved subsets from di឴erent shots in the multiple-shot fast spin echo acquisition. Except for the area within dashed
box, all of the source data points in the black box are used to regenerate the k-space signal in the dashed box through
convolution. Solid circles are source data points.

Fig. 2. Simulated motion induced modulation along phase encoding direction before and after the PANDA convolution
operation. Top: Signal modulation due to quasi-periodic motion before convolution operation is shown. Interleaved blue
squares indicate sampling points. Bottom: Signal modulation due to motion after convolution. Motion induced modulation
function was changed, resulting in di឴erent ghost components in regenerated ghosted images.

Fig.3. Application to a data set corrupted by respiratory motion. a, b: The images before and after 3 iterations of motion
reduction. The ROIs for ghost are outlined with yellow squares, while ROIs of image-signal are outlined with green circles. c:
Ghost mask decomposed from image a during វrst iteration. d: Ghost mask decomposed from image b in the 4th iteration.
Windowing level of ghost masks were adjusted for better appearance.

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Fig. 4. Application to a data set corrupted by pulsation and respiratory motion. a, b: The images before and after 3
iterations of motion reduction. The ROIs for ghost are outlined with yellow squares, while ROIs of image-signal are outlined
with green circles. c: Ghost mask decomposed from image a during វrst iteration. d: Ghost mask decomposed from image
b in the 4th iteration. Windowing level of ghost masks were adjusted for better appearance.

Proc. Intl. Soc. Mag. Reson. Med. 24 (2016)

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