Journal: Magnetic Resonance in Medicine
Article Title: Non‐contrast enhanced simultaneous 3D whole‐heart bright‐blood pulmonary veins visualization and black‐blood quantification of atrial wall thickness
doi: 10.1002/mrm.27472
Figure Lengend Snippet: Proposed framework for simultaneous 3D whole‐heart bright‐blood depiction of the PVs and heart anatomy and black‐blood visualization of atrial walls. Two magnetization prepared bright‐blood volumes are acquired in odd and even heartbeats. Specifically, magnetization transfer in combination with an inversion pulse is used in odd heartbeats (MTC‐IR BOOST A), whereas magnetization transfer solely is exploited in even heartbeats (MTC BOOST B), The MTC‐IR acquisition is designed for comprehensive visualization of the heart anatomy. Although a short TI is exploited for fat saturation in odd heartbeats, spectral presaturation (Fat Sat) is used in even heartbeats. Data acquisition is performed using a 3D Cartesian trajectory with spiral profile order and segmented over multiple heartbeats (green, red, blue). A low‐resolution 2D iNAV is acquired in each heartbeat by spatially encoding the ramp‐up pulses of the bSSFP sequences. The bright‐blood MTC‐IR BOOST and MTC BOOST volumes are non‐rigidly motion corrected at the end‐expiratory level and, subsequently, combined in a PSIR‐like reconstruction to generate a complementary black‐blood volume for atrial wall visualization (PSIR BOOST, C). PVs, pulmonary veins; MTC, magnetization transfer contrast; IR, inversion recovery pulse; PSIR, phase sensitive inversion recovery
Article Snippet: In each heartbeat, a low resolution 2D image‐based navigator (iNAV) is acquired by spatially encoding the ramp‐up pulses of the bSSFP sequence, therefore allowing for the estimation of respiratory motion along the SI and right‐left (RL) directions.
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