title: Flow artifacts in steady-state free precession cine imaging.
abstract: Steady-state free precession (SSFP) cardiac cine images are frequently corrupted by dark flow artifacts, which can usually be eliminated by reshimming and retuning the scanner. A theoretical explanation for these artifacts is provided in terms of spins moving through an off-resonant point in the magnetic field, and the theory is validated using phantom experiments. The artifacts can be reproduced in vivo by detuning the center frequency by an amount in the range of half the inverse repetition time (TR). Since this offset is similar in magnitude to the frequency difference between the water and lipid peaks, a likely cause of the artifacts in vivo is that the center frequency is tuned incorrectly to the lipid peak rather than the water peak.
authors.affiliation: Radiology Department, Evanston Hospital, Evanston Northwestern Healthcare and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Evanston, Illinois 60201, USA. p-storey@northwestern.edu
authors.forename: Pippa
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Storey
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Qun
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Robert R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Edelman
mesh_terms: D016477:Artifacts; D001783:Blood Flow Velocity / Q000502:physiology; D006331:Heart Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D019028:Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Cine / Q000379:methods*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging