Lick-Kong Tam1, Jason Stockmann1, Pelin Aksit Ciris1, Robert Todd Constable1,2
1Biomedical Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA; 2Diagnostic Radiology & Neurosurgery, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
In parallel magnetic resonance imaging, locally sensitive receive coils share spatial localization duties with magnetic gradient encoding functions. We performed a line-search optimization of non-linear encoding gradient shapes composed of third order and lower spherical harmonics to determine encoding functions to better complement receive coil localization. A metric independent of reconstruction method evaluated the ability of encoding functions to complement receive coils. The resulting non-linear encoding functions, amenable to a image reconstruction method that does not require phase encoding, may improve imaging parameters including resolution, gradient slew rate scan time.