In golden angle radial magnetic resonance imaging a constant azimuthal radial profile spacing of 111.246...(°) guarantees a nearly uniform azimuthal profile distribution in k-space for an arbitrary number of radial profiles. Even though this profile order is advantageous for various real-time imaging methods, in combination with balanced steady-state free precession (SSFP) sequences the large azimuthal angle increment may lead to strong image artifacts, due to the varying eddy currents introduced by the rapidly switching gradient scheme. Based on a generalized Fibonacci sequence, a new sequence of smaller irrational angles is introduced ( 49.750...(°), 32.039...(°), 27.198...(°), 23.628...(°), ... ). The subsequent profile orders guarantee the same sampling efficiency as the golden angle if at least a minimum number of radial profiles is used for reconstruction. The suggested angular increments are applied for dynamic imaging of the heart and the temporomandibular joint. It is shown that for balanced SSFP sequences, trajectories using the smaller golden angle surrogates strongly reduce the image artifacts, while the free retrospective choice of the reconstruction window width is maintained.

This work enables sparse, golden-ratio-based imaging with balanced SSFP sequences. Magn Reson Med 75:2372-2378, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Respiratory SG can be applied for improving image sharpness. Combining SG with iterative reconstruction allows generation of high temporal resolution cine data, which reveal more details of cardiac motion.

Image-based respiratory self gating in UTE 3D lung images allows successful retrospective respiratory gating, also enabling reconstruction of intermediate respiratory stages.

Background: Cardiovascular magnetic resonance based tissue tracking (CMR-TT) was reported to provide detailed insight into left ventricular (LV) contractile function and deformation with both of two-and threedimensional (2/3D) algorithms. This study was designed to investigate the feasibility and reproducibility of these two techniques for measuring LV global and segmental strain, and establish gender-and age-related reference values of global multi-dimensional peak strains among large healthy population.Methods: We retrospectively recruited 150 healthy volunteers (75 males/females) and divided them into three age groups (G 20-40 , G 41-60 and G 61-80 ). LV global mean and peak strains as well as segmental strains in radial, circumferential and longitudinal directions were derived from post-hoc 2/3D CMR-TT analysis of standard steady-state free precession (SSFP) cine images acquired at 1.5T field strength.Results: Both 2D and 3D CMR-TT modalities enable the tracking of LV myocardial tissues and generate global and segmental strain data. By comparison, 3D CMR-TT was more feasible in measuring segmental deformation since it could generate values at all segments. The amplitudes of LV 3D global peak strain were the smallest among those of 2/3D corresponding global mean or peak strains except in the radial direction, and was highly correlated with 2D global mean strains (correlation coefficient r=0.71-0.90), 2D global peak strains (r=0.75-0.89) and 3D global mean strains (all r=0.99). In healthy cohort, LV 3D global peak values were 44.4%±13.0% for radial, −17.0%±2.7% for circumferential and −15.4%±2.3% for longitudinal strain. Females showed significantly larger amplitude of strains than males, especially in G 61-80 (P<0.05). The subjects in G 61-80 showed larger amplitude of strains than the volunteers in younger groups. The intra-and inter-observer agreement of 2/3D CMR-TT analysis in evaluating LV myocardial global deformation was better than segmental measurement.Conclusions: CMR-TT is a feasible and reproducible technique for assessing LV myocardial deformation, especially at the global level. The establishment of specific reference values of LV global and segmental systolic strains and the investigation of dimension-, gender-and age-related differences provide a fundamental insight into the features of LV contraction and works as an essential step in clinical routine.

The combination of Golden Angle Radial Sparse SENSE with image-based self-gating allows measurement of velocities of the myocardium with superior black-blood contrast and full coverage of the cardiac cycle.

A new self-gating method was proposed that allows cardiovascular magnetic resonance of arrhythmic patients, which is a common problem in clinical practice. Further, the proposed method enables self-gated imaging of the temporomandibular joint. Magn Reson Med 76:919-925, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

BackgroundThe objective of this study was the quantification of myocardial motion from 3D tissue phase mapped (TPM) CMR. Recent work on myocardial motion quantification by TPM has been focussed on multi-slice 2D acquisitions thus excluding motion information from large regions of the left ventricle. Volumetric motion assessment appears an important next step towards the understanding of the volumetric myocardial motion and hence may further improve diagnosis and treatments in patients with myocardial motion abnormalities.MethodsVolumetric motion quantification of the complete left ventricle was performed in 12 healthy volunteers and two patients applying a black-blood 3D TPM sequence. The resulting motion field was analysed regarding motion pattern differences between apical and basal locations as well as for asynchronous motion pattern between different myocardial segments in one or more slices. Motion quantification included velocity, torsion, rotation angle and strain derived parameters.ResultsAll investigated motion quantification parameters could be calculated from the 3D-TPM data. Parameters quantifying hypokinetic or asynchronous motion demonstrated differences between motion impaired and healthy myocardium.Conclusions3D-TPM enables the gapless volumetric quantification of motion abnormalities of the left ventricle, which can be applied in future application as additional information to provide a more detailed analysis of the left ventricular function.