Performance of sampling density-weighted and postfiltered density-adapted projection reconstruction in sodium magnetic resonance imaging.

Sampling density-weighted apodization projection reconstruction sequences are evaluated for three-dimensional radial imaging. The readout gradients of the sampling density-weighted apodization sequence are designed such that the locally averaged sampling density matches a Hamming filter function. This technique is compared with density-adapted projection reconstruction with nonfiltered and postfiltered image reconstruction. Sampling density-weighted apodization theoretically allows for a 1.28-fold higher signal-to-noise ratio compared with postfiltered density-adapted projection reconstruction sequences, if T(2)* decay is negligible compared with the readout duration T(RO). Simulations of the point-spread functions are performed for monoexponential and biexponential decay to investigate the effects of T(2)* decay on the performance of the different sequences. Postfiltered density-adapted projection reconstruction performs superior to sampling density-weighted apodization for large T(RO)/T(2)* ratios [>1.36 (monoexponential decay); >0.35 (biexponential decay with T(2s)*/T(2f)* = 10)], if signal-to-noise ratio of point-like objects is considered. In conclusion, it depends on the readout parameters, the T(2)* relaxation times, and the dimensions of the subject which of both sequences is most suitable.