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Abstract #5067

New Calculation Method of Pixel Shift Map on PSF Mapping Technique: A Study on 7T MRI

Se-Hong Oh1, Jun-Young Chung1, Myung-Ho In2, Maxim Zaitsev3, Oliver Speck2, Young-Bo Kim1, Zang-Hee Cho1

1Neuroscience Research Institute, Gachon University of Medicine and Science, Incheon, Korea, Republic of; 2Department of Biomedical Magnetic Resonance, Institute for Experimental Physics, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany; 3Department of Radiologic Research, Medical Physics, University Hospital of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany


Echo-planar imaging (EPI) is one of the fastest and most widely used MRI pulse sequences in the field of MRI. Compared to conventional imaging sequence, EPI is more prone to a variety of artifacts. A prominent EPI artifact is geometric distortion due to strong magnetic field inhomogeneity and susceptibility. Previous PSF mapping method, which was implemented by Zaitsev et al. used GE (Gradient Echo) StdDev (standard deviation) image as a base and produced a mask to extrapolate pixel shift map. Flow artifact as well as setting of the parameters (i.e. threshold value) can affect the result of mask. And the extrapolated shift map which resulting shift maps with extrapolation eventually have error. Consequently corrected images will also have errors induced by mask errors and flow artifacts. So we propose new mask calculation method based on using a 2D PSF data based, not based on the GE StdDev image as previously used. This method is capable of making automatic mask calculation procedure, along with the advantage of eliminating flow induced ghost artifact all together.