Magnetic resonance imaging apparatus

This invention relates to magnetic resonance imaging apparatus.

The invention especially relates to apparatus for producing images which suppress fluid, particularly apparatus using inversion recovery sequences.

One such sequence is Fluid-Attenuated Inversion Recovery (FLAIR).

FLAIR provides a highly sensitive means of detecting lesions of the brain, particularly in the periventicular region. However CSF flow can lead to poor CSF suppression, particularly in the brain stem, the foremana of Munroe and around the spinal cord. This problem can be avoided by the use of a non-selective inversion pulse, which inverts all the CSF, so that flow ceases to make any difference. A disadvantage in implementing this concept is that, the sequential excitation of the subsequent slices results in an inversion time that varies from slice to slice. This leads to variable contrast from one slice to the next with incomplete suppression of CSF in many slices.

Recently a method has been presented (Norris, D. G., ESMRMB Proc. 264, 1999) of reducing RF dose for MDEFT imaging at high field by using a single non-selective inversion pulse followed by a rapid stream of field echo slice excitations per TR. This method was subject to variable contrast due to the variable TI per slice, and this was dealt with by cycling the slice excitation order and associating each TI with a region of K-space rather than a particular slice.

In accordance with the present invention, slice order cycling is applied to the FLAIR sequence.

This allows uniform contrast to be attained combined the desirable flow insensitive properties of non-selective inversion pulse. The cycling provides a mechanism which can ensure that data for vhich CSF is at its null point is placed at the centre of k-space in each slice. The sequence has interesting properties because of the very different state of magnetisation recovery of brain/cord and CSF.

Ways of carrying out the invention will now be described in greater detail, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 shows two spread functions; and

FIG. 2 shows pulse sequence details.

The basic sequence consists of a multi-slice spin echo acquisition with a non-selective IR pulse at the start of each TR. Within each TR each slice was excited once. At the next TR the slice firing order was incremented to that what was previously the last slice was excited first followed by the rest of the slices in the previous order. The phase encoding structure was similar in concept to Fast Spin Echo. Each phase encode is associated with a slice firing time, such that the lowest strip of k-space comes from the first excitation, the next part from the second and so on. The number of lines in each strip is the total number of phase lines divided by the number of slice. This results in a smooth continuous T 1 filter across K-space with the centre of k-space collected at time TI for each slice.

Use of spin echoes fired in rapid succession with different phase encoding presents similar potential problems with stimulated echoes as are encountered with Fast Spin Echoes. In this case rather than using re-winders, the sequence structure requires the phase encode gradient to come after the refocusing pulse. Placement of the phase gradient prior to the refocusing pulse produces a stimulated echo offset from the centre of K-space by one phase encode group.

In one example, the sequence was implemented on a 1.0T Picker (Highland Heights, Cleveland, Ohio) HPQ Plus scanner. Its properties were tested using phantoms and on normal volunteers, who gave informed consent. Brain images were obtained with a bird cage coil and C-spine images were collected using a quadrature C-spine coil. Raw data was taken off line for reordering and reconstruction. The following parameters were used with the test sequence and a conventional FLAIR with non-selective inversion and a conventional fully interleaved FLAIR sequence: TE 30 msec, TR 6000 msec, FOV 35 cm, slice thickness 4 mm, 1 signal average, 128×256 resolution, TI 2100 msec, 9 slices.

The point spread functions (PSFs) for brain tissue (T 1 ≈400 msec) and CSF (T 1 ≈4500 msec) were simulated using IDL.

The new sequence produced CSF nulled images though out the brain and in the spinal canal. It was clearly superior to the fully interleaved IR variant in regions where CSF flow is significant, such as in the C-spine. The SNR of the test sequence was inferior than the conventional non-selective variant of FLAIR for the optimal slice, but compensated for this by producing uniform contrast in all slices.

The PSFs for tissue and CSF are shown in FIG. 1 . The Tissue PSF is very similar to that for a standard conventional spin echo, whereas the PSF for CSF is suppressed by a factor of 8 and lacks a central high signal peak.

The variant of FLAIR test here provides appears to provide a practical solution to the problem examinations where CSF flow adversely affect the performance of conventional FLAIR sequences. A disadvantage of the current approach is that it is relatively slow, since no use has been mad of Fast Spin Echo methods. Combination of both multiple TIs and Tes in the same data set presents a challenge similar to the problems encountered with GRASE, where T 2 and T 2 * are mixed.

The invention has been described with reference to the preferred embodiment. Obviously, modifications and alterations will occur to others upon reading and understanding the preceding description. It is intended that the invention be construed as including all such modifications and alterations insofar as they come within the scope of the appended claims or the equivalents thereof.