Making SENSE of Chemical Shift: Separating Species in Single-Shot EPI Using Multiple Coils

Martin Uecker¹, Michael Lustig¹

We present a method for separating chemical shift in single-shot EPI using multiple coils. Chemical shift causes severe artifacts in long echo-train EPI. This artifact is inconsistent with the coil sensitivities. For example, fat would have shifted sensitivity maps with respect to water. By finding a solution consistent with these two sets of maps, separation is achieved. Results are presented using maps obtained from a pre-scan showing high quality images without the need of knowing the field inhomogeneity. In addition, we present a fully automated joint estimation scheme based nonlinear inversion that does not require prior knowledge of the sensitivities.