A fast 2D free-breathing myocardial T1 mapping technique with multi-slice free-running acquisition and self-navigated motion calibration

Motivation: Free-running cardiac T1 mapping is warranted, especially for exercise cardiac MR to monitor the dynamic T1 changes. However, existing 3D methods suffer from long scan times, while 2D methods are subject to through-plane respiratory motion. Goal(s): To develop a fast 2D free-breathing T1 mapping technique that is robust to respiratory motion. Approach: A free-running sequence with interleaved multi-slice excitation and self-navigated respiratory motion calibration was developed to deal with the through-plane and in-plane respiratory motion retrospectively. Results: Respiratory motion is effectively suppressed with the proposed method which achieves superior T1 mapping with good repeatability in a short scan time of 46 seconds. Impact: The proposed novel 2D free-running technique generating high-quality cardiac T1 maps in short scan time offers new strategy for respiratory motion correction and can be applied to challenging scenarios such as exercise cardiac MR.