Are Movement Artifacts in Magnetic Resonance Imaging a Real Problem?—A Narrative Review

Abstract

Movement artifacts compromise image quality and may interfere with interpretation, especially in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) applications with low signal-to-noise ratio such as functional MRI or diffusion tensor imaging, and when imaging small lesions. High image resolution has high sensitivity to motion artifacts and often prolongs scan time that again aggravates movement artifacts. During the scan fast imaging techniques and sequences, optimal receiver coils, careful patient positioning, and instruction may minimize movement artifacts. Physiological noise sources are motion from respiration, flow and pulse coupled to cardiac cycles, from the swallowing reflex and small spontaneous head movements. Par example, in resting-state functional MRI spontaneous neuronal activity adds 1–2% of signal change, even under optimal conditions signal contributions from physiological noise remain a considerable fraction hereof. Movement tracking during imaging may allow for prospective correction or postprocessing steps separating signal and noise.

Magnetic resonance imaging of the live tri-spine horseshoe crab (Tachypleus tridentatus)

“…In the event that the animal is active, the MR images may subject to motion artifacts (e.g. blurring), which may degrade image quality and lead to misinterpretation of anatomical structures [Havsteen et al, 2017]. In the present study, sedation was achieved by removing the tri-spine horseshoe crabs from water for 15 minutes prior to handling and imaging.…”

Neurodiagnostics in Sports: Investigating the Athlete’s Brain to Augment Performance and Sport-Specific Skills

“…Beyond financial and infrastructural aspects, one crucial limitation in the use of MRI for neurodiagnostics is that sportspecific movements cannot be performed due to the spatial limitations inside the MRI bore and its high susceptibility to motion artifacts (Zaitsev et al, 2015;Havsteen et al, 2017; see Figure 2). Apart from these limitations in the use of MRI, it is reasonable to assume that a better understanding of brain functioning and/or adaptations in brain structure might help to optimize skills and performance in a sports-related context.…”

The Trace Conditional Learning of the Noxious Stimulus in UWS Patients and Its Prognostic Value in a GSR and HRV Entropy Study

“…In clinical practice, electroencephalography (EEG) recordings (Gantner et al, 2012;Fernández-Espejo and Owen, 2013) and neuroimaging approaches (Schiff et al, 2005;Turner-Stokes et al, 2012) have been proposed, and are often used, as complementary tools to help in assessment, diagnosis, prognosis, and decision making in DOC patients (Cruse et al, 2011;Di Perri et al, 2014;Demertzi et al, 2015). Both fMRI and EEG recordings are hardly doable, because of movement artifacts (Havsteen et al, 2017;Jiang et al, 2019) or, in the case of EEG recordings, because of the presence of craniotomy (Reis et al, 2014).…”