Motion Mitigation Techniques for Abdominal and Cardiac MR Imaging

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Biomedical Engineering
• Radiology

Background:

• Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) offers excellent soft tissue contrast for cardiac and abdominal organs.
• Physiological motion (cardiac, respiratory, peristalsis) significantly degrades MRI quality, causing artifacts and necessitating repeat scans.
• Effective motion correction is crucial for accurate diagnosis and reproducible quantitative biomarkers.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review current motion correction strategies for cardiac and abdominal MRI.
• To discuss the principles and clinical applications of prospective and retrospective motion correction techniques.
• To highlight emerging trends and future directions in motion-compensated MRI.

Main Methods:

• Categorization of techniques into prospective (real-time adjustments) and retrospective (post-reconstruction corrections).
• Examples include gating, navigator echoes, k-space binning, image registration, and model-based reconstructions.
• Discussion of methods for rigid and non-rigid motion, including elastic registration and motion-compensated reconstruction.

Main Results:

• Both rigid and non-rigid motion present unique challenges, requiring tailored correction approaches.
• Application-specific solutions are presented for cardiac (cine, flow, tagging, mapping) and abdominal (liver, kidney, GI tract) imaging.
• Motion correction mitigates artifacts, improves diagnostic performance, and enhances image reproducibility.

Conclusions:

• Motion correction is essential for robust and high-quality cardiac and abdominal MRI.
• Emerging trends like AI integration and advanced sensors promise further improvements.
• Increased availability of tools will facilitate routine clinical adoption, improving patient experience and diagnostic confidence.