Artifacts

 Magnetic field perturbations

 External magnetic field 𝑩0 is not a problem: homogeneous (a few ppm)
 Local internal distortions of the magnetic field are a problem
 Reason: all substances get magnetized when placed in a magnetic field
 Susceptibility 𝜒:
• tells how easy substances can be magnetized: 𝑴 = 𝜒 𝑯
• 𝑯 is the “real” magnetic field and 𝑩 is in fact the magnetic induction
• Relationship: 𝑩 = 𝜇𝑯 = 𝜇0 1 + 𝜒 𝑯 ( 𝜇 = permeability)
• Diamagnetic substances: −𝜒 ≪ 1 → 𝜇 ≅ 𝜇0 Most tissues are diamagnetic
• Paramagnetic substances: 𝜒 < 1 → 𝜇 > 𝜇0 (attracted by 𝑩0 )
Examples: gadolinium (Gd) and deoxyhemoglobin
• Ferromagnetic substances: 𝜒 ≫ 1 → 𝜇 ≫ 𝜇0 (strongly attracted by 𝑩0 )
Examples: iron (Fe), cobalt (Co) and nickel (Ni)

 Susceptibility artifacts occur at interfaces of different 𝜒, such as tissue-air interfaces:

• Differences in 𝜒 lead to distortions in the local field
• Causes dephasing of spins (signal loss) and mismapping artifacts
 GRE is more sensitive to these artifacts than SE
Artifacts
 Artifacts
 RF and gradient artifacts
 RF-pulses:
• Crosstalk in multi-slice imaging: slice gap needed
• Imperfect 180°-pulses: spoiling needed
 Gradients:
• Eddy currents distort gradient waveforms
• Nonlinearities cause local magnetic field distortions
 Artifacts
 Signal processing artifacts
 Aliasing: due to undersampling in k-space (object larger than FOV)
• Solutions:
– Oversampling:
o FOV and 𝑁𝑥 are doubled with constant ∆𝑥
o Data outside FOV are discarded
o Along read out: identical sampling time 𝑇𝑥 = 𝑁𝑥 ∆𝑡 and identical SNR
o Along phase encode: longer 𝑇𝑎𝑐𝑞 → halfscan: identical 𝑇𝑎𝑐𝑞 and SNR
– Saturation of signals outside FOV
o Saturation recovery and spoiler gradient
o Surface coil
 Artifacts
 Gibbs ringing
• Spurious ringing around sharp edges
• Reason:
o Sharp edges contain very high spatial frequencies
o They can not be measured in practice: truncation
o Object convolved with sinc-function → ringing
• Solutions:
o Filtering data → reduced spatial resolution
o 𝑁 ↑ with constant FOV ( 𝑓𝑜𝑠𝑐 ↑ as 𝑁 ↑ )
• Gibbs ringing most pronounced along phase encode (𝑁 determines 𝑇𝑎𝑐𝑞 )
 Artifacts
 Chemical shift
 Chemical shift: difference in 𝑓0 experienced in different chemical environments
 Example: ∆𝑓𝑐𝑠 = 𝑓𝐹 − 𝑓𝑊 = −3.5 ppm
 Read out: 𝑓 ↔ 𝑥 thus misregistration
 Gives bright bands (overlap) and dark bands (subtraction)
 Displacement (in pixels): ∆𝑓𝑐𝑠 ∆𝑓𝑝𝑖𝑥𝑒𝑙 = 𝜎𝐵0 𝐺𝑥 ∆𝑥
 Reduction:
• 𝐺𝑥 ↑ or ∆𝑥 ↑
• fat sat pulses
 EPI: most prominent along phase encode direction (cumulative phase shifts)
 Artifacts
 Motion and flow
 Physiologic motion: Gross body movements, Respiratory motion, Cardiac motion, Peristalsis,
Blood flow, Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)
 Two time scales in MRI
 Read out: 𝑇𝑥 = 𝑁𝑥 ∆𝑡
 Phase encode: 𝑇𝑅
 Read out: blurring
 Phase encode: ghosting
 Reason:
 Phase encode cycle not synchronous with motion
 Motion leads to magnetization changes (magnitude and/or phase shifts) which vary from view to
view (view = measurement of a profile)
 FT cannot reconstruct this in a correct manner (Modulation-shift theorem)
 Ghosts (partial copies) of the object
 Ghost separation in pixels (periodic motion): ∆= 𝑇𝑅 𝑁𝑦 𝑁𝐸𝑋 𝑇𝑝 = 𝑇𝑎𝑐𝑞 𝑇𝑝
 Ghosts can be bright and dark, they become fainter with increasing distance from original
structure
 Nonperiodic or random motions: ghost pattern more complex
 Artifacts
 Solutions
• Pulsatile flow: spatial presaturation of inflowing protons (no signal, no ghosts)
• Periodic motion: cardiac gating and ECG triggering
• Respiratoty motion:
– Monitor chest wall motion → reorder scan in k-space (central lines important)
– Breath hold
– Navigators
• Fast scan imaging (EPI,…)

» A: free, B: ECG-triggered, C: navigator

» D: with T2-prepulse better contrast for coronaries