Derivative encoding for parallel magnetic resonance imaging.

PURPOSE: To introduce a linear shift-invariant relationship between the partial derivatives of k space signals acquired using multichannel receive coils and to demonstrate that k space derivatives can be used for image unwrapping.
METHODS: Fourier transform of k space derivatives contains information on the spatial origins of aliased pixels; therefore, images can be reconstructed by k space derivatives. Fully sampled phantom and brain images acquired at 3 T using a standard eight channel receive coil were used to validate the k space derivatives theorem by unwrapping aliased images.
RESULTS: Derivative encoding leads to new methods for parallel imaging reconstruction in both k space and image domains. Noise amplification in sensitivity encoding image reconstruction, which is considered to produce the optimal SNR, can be further reduced using k space derivative encoding without making any assumptions on the characteristics of the images to be reconstructed.
CONCLUSIONS: This work demonstrated that the partial derivative of the k space signal acquired from one coil with respect to one direction can be expressed as a sum of partial derivatives of signals from multiple coils with respect to the perpendicular k space direction(s). This relationship between the partial derivatives of k space signals is linear and shift-invariant in the Cartesian coordinate system.