Moment and direction of the spoiler gradient for effective artifact suppression in RF-spoiled gradient echo imaging.

Radiofrequency (RF) -spoiled gradient echo sequences were developed with the aim to produce images with T(1) weighted contrast within short acquisition time. Over the past two decades, this type of sequence has proven to be a robust technique and represents a reliable workhorse in clinical MRI. This study presents an analysis of ghost artifacts, which appear occasionally in RF-spoiled gradient echo images. It is demonstrated that the artifacts result from intrinsically emerging signal oscillations, which can be damped down by the application of spoiler gradients. (c) 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.