Accurate cardiac synchronization is essential in CMR. At ultra-high field, ECG triggering can be significantly impacted by the magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) effect. Here, we investigate the performance of a conventional 3-lead ECG trigger device and a state-of-the-art trigger algorithm for cardiac ECG synchronization at 7 T. We show that by appropriate subject preparation and by including a learning phase for the R-wave detection outside of the magnetic field, reliable ECG triggering at ultra-high field is feasible despite severe distortions of the ECG signal. A quantitative analysis in 10 healthy subjects revealed a trigger sensitivity and specificity of 97.6% and 98.4%, respectively.
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