Abhinav V. Sambasivan1, Lance DelaBarre2, Emad S. Ebbini1, Thomas J. Vaughan1,2, and Anand Gopinath1
1Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN, United States, 2Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, UMN-Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN, United States
Counteracting
the effects of B1 heterogeneities has been a major challenge for High
field MRI systems. We propose here, a receiver-based approach called the Receive-RF
Shimming (Rx-RFS) algorithm for multichannel MR systems which offers potential
advantages in terms of reducing image acquisition time and mitigating SAR
concerns. RX-RFS involves computing an optimal spatially-varying weight vector for
combining the images from different receive elements. The reconstructed images
(using Rx-RFS) exhibit enhanced contrast and more uniform signal levels when
compared to standard reconstruction schemes throughout the entire Field-of-View.
Rx-RFS also offers clinicians the flexibility to obtain local reconstructions at
arbitrary Regions-of-Interest.
