Analysis of physiological noise in quantitative cardiac magnetic resonance

To determine the impact of imaging parameters on the temporal signal-to-noise ratio (TSNR) of quantitative cardiac magnetic resonance (MR) in humans, and to determine applicability of the physiological noise covariance (PNC) model for physiological noise (PN).

We conducted MRI experiments in four healthy volunteers, and obtained series of short-axis cardiac images acquired with snapshot balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) and snapshot gradient echo (GRE) using a broad range of spatial resolutions and parallel imaging acceleration factors commonly used in quantitative cardiac MR. We measured regional SNR and TSNR in these datasets and fit the measurements to the PNC model for PN, which assumes that PN scales with signal strength.

The relationship between SNR and TSNR in human cardiac MR without contrast preparation was well modeled by the PNC model. SNR consistently decreased as the spatial resolution (matrix size) and acceleration factor (R) increased for both GRE and bSSFP imaging. TSNR varied linearly with SNR using GRE imaging, when SNR was low (SNR < 20), and approached an asymptotic limit using bSSFP imaging, when SNR was high (SNR > 40).

The PNC model can be used to guide the choice of matrix size and acceleration factor to optimize TSNR in stable contrast cardiac MR, such as T2-prepared Blood-Oxygen-Level-Dependent (BOLD) and several variants of Arterial Spin Labeled (ASL) cardiac MR.