Accelerating magnetic resonance fingerprinting (MRF) using t-blipped simultaneous multislice (SMS) acquisition

Area of Science:

• Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
• Biomedical Engineering
• Medical Physics

Background:

• Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting (MRF) enables quantitative tissue parameter mapping.
• Accelerating MRF acquisition is crucial for clinical applicability.
• Simultaneous Multislice (SMS) acquisition offers a potential solution for acceleration.

Purpose of the Study:

• To incorporate Simultaneous Multislice (SMS) acquisition into Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting (MRF) to accelerate the acquisition process.
• To develop and validate a novel t-blipped SMS-MRF method.

Main Methods:

• The t-blipped SMS-MRF method was developed by introducing phase encoding in the slice direction via Gz blips.
• A combined slice-direction SENSE and dictionary matching approach was used for data reconstruction.
• Varying Gz blip parameters allowed for time-dependent differential phase encoding between slices.

Main Results:

• Monte Carlo simulations demonstrated good accuracy and precision for T1 (CCC=0.96) and T2 (CCC=0.90) estimates with multiband factor (MB)=2 t-blipped SMS-MRF.
• In vivo experiments showed high agreement between T1 and T2 maps generated by MB=2 t-blipped SMS-MRF and conventional MRF.
• The method successfully accelerated MRF acquisition without compromising parameter mapping quality.

Conclusions:

• The MB=2 t-blipped SMS-MRF acquisition and reconstruction method was successfully demonstrated and validated.
• This approach provides a significant acceleration in parameter mapping within the MRF framework.
• The validated method holds promise for more efficient quantitative MRI in clinical settings.