Motion-adapted gating based on k-space weighting for reduction of respiratory motion artifacts

A new modified type of gating is presented that shows the ability to reduce the total scan time with almost conserved image quality compared with conventional gating. This new motion-adapted gating approach is based on a k-space-dependent gating threshold function. MR data acquired are only accepted if the motion-induced displacements measured from a reference position are below the chosen gating threshold function. During the MR measurement the scanner analyses respiratory motion decides in real-time which data in k-space could be measured according to the gating threshold function and performs data acquisition. In the present paper the approach will be described and discussed. Simulations based on in vivo data and initial in vivo experiments are presented to compare different variants of the new approach mutually and to the conventional technique. The analysis given is focused on spin warp type sequences, which are the best candidates for this approach.