Prospective correction of affine motion for arbitrary MR sequences on a clinical scanner.

The concept of prospective 3D affine motion correction was generalized, based on the Bloch equations, for signal excitation and sampling using arbitrary MR sequences. The technique was implemented on a clinical MRI scanner for Cartesian, radial, and spiral imaging sequences, as well as for 2D spatially selective RF excitation pulses. A patient-specific motion model steered by real-time navigators was employed to account for the additional degrees of freedom provided by the affine motion model. Different navigator concepts (multiple spatial and temporal navigators, quadratic navigators and other motion sensors) were investigated, with the aim of improving the correlation between navigator information and the motion model. Experiments on moving phantoms are presented to prove the technical feasibility of the approach. In vivo experiments on coronary MRA and renal MRI show the potential of the method for cardiac and abdominal applications hampered by respiratory motion. (c) 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc.