MR artifacts

Dr. Fathima Janan

 PHASE MAPPING
• Appearance
• Produces replication of moving anatomy
across the image in the phase encoding
direction.
• Usually seen in chest wall during respiration,
swallowing, eye movements and pulsatile
movement of vessels.
• Cause:
• The phase encoding gradient has a different
amplitude every TR, while the frequency and
slice select gradients have the same amplitude
every TR. Therefore as anatomy moves during
the scan it is misplaced in the phase encoding
direction as the phase gradient changes.
• There is a time delay between phase encoding
and readout. Therefore anatomy may have
moved between phase encoding and when
the signal is read during frequency encoding
and put into K space.
• Remedy
• 1) Swapping phase and frequency:
– As the artifact (ghosting) occurs only along the phase axis, the
direction of phase encoding can be changed. Thus the artifact
does not interfere with the area of interest.

• 2)Using pre-saturation pulses:

– Placing pre-saturation volumes over the area producing artifact
nullifies signal and reduces the artifact.

•
• 3) Using respiratory compensation techniques:
– In long sequences a method known as or
respiratory ordered phase encoding (ROPE) is
used.
– This entails placing a set of bellows around the
patient’s chest when imaging the chest or
abdomen. These bellows expand and contract as
the patient breathes. The bellows are connected
to a transducer.
• The transducer converts mechanical maotion
of the chest to electrical signal.