Direct imaging of magnetic field gradients by group spin-echo selection

A new image processing method for single-echo gradient echo imaging is presented which extracts local phase gradient information by k-space filtering instead of by phased reconstruction and spatial differentiation. It is shown that local phase gradient directions and semiquantitative local phase gradient magnitudes can be directly measured, even in regions where phased image reconstruction suffers from multiple phase foldovers due to strong phase modulations. The directional information thus obtained can be used as a reference to identify and correct phase modulation foldovers in phase maps which may be computed from the same raw data. The method is applied here to measure static magnetic field gradients and illustrates fundamental k-space signal properties of gradient echo imaging. Based on this concept, image artifacts caused by conventional strong k-space filtering in gradient echo imaging are discussed.