Simulation of acquisition artefacts in MR scans: effects on automatic measures of brain atrophy

Automatic algorithms in conjunction with longitudinal MR brain images can be used to measure cerebral atrophy, which is particularly pronounced in several types of dementia. An atrophy simulation technique has been devised to facilitate validation of these algorithms. To make this model of atrophy more realistic we simulate acquisition artefacts which are common problems in dementia imaging: motion (both step and periodic motion) and pulsatile flow artefact. Artefacts were simulated by combining different portions of k-space from various modified image. The original images were 7 MR scans of healthy elderly controls, each of which had two levels of simulated atrophy. We investigate the effect of the simulated acquisition artefacts in atrophy measurements provided by an automatic technique, SIENA.