title: 3-D residual eddy current field characterisation: applied to diffusion weighted magnetic resonance imaging.
abstract: Clinical use of the Stejskal-Tanner diffusion weighted images is hampered by the geometric distortions that result from the large residual 3-D eddy current field induced. In this work, we aimed to predict, using linear response theory, the residual 3-D eddy current field required for geometric distortion correction based on phantom eddy current field measurements. The predicted 3-D eddy current field induced by the diffusion-weighting gradients was able to reduce the root mean square error of the residual eddy current field to ~1 Hz. The model's performance was tested on diffusion weighted images of four normal volunteers, following distortion correction, the quality of the Stejskal-Tanner diffusion-weighted images was found to have comparable quality to image registration based corrections (FSL) at low b-values. Unlike registration techniques the correction was not hindered by low SNR at high b-values, and results in improved image quality relative to FSL. Characterization of the 3-D eddy current field with linear response theory enables the prediction of the 3-D eddy current field required to correct eddy current induced geometric distortions for a wide range of clinical and high b-value protocols.
authors.affiliation: Department ofRadiology,University of Geneva, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland and the Advanced Clinical Imaging Technology, CIBMS Siemens Suisse SA, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland. kieran.obrien@epfl.ch
authors.forename: Kieran
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: O'Brien
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Daducci
authors.forename: Nils
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kickler
authors.forename: Francois
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lazeyras
authors.forename: Rolf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gruetter
authors.forename: Thorsten
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Feiweier
authors.forename: Gunnar
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Krueger
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology; D056324:Diffusion Tensor Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D004574:Electromagnetic Fields; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio