Motivation: High-resolution time-of-flight (TOF) magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) is needed for imaging the cerebral vasculature at the mesoscopic scale but is challenged by involuntary head movements during image acquisition. Goal(s): This study tests whether whole-brain volumetric navigators (vNavs), based on 3D-EPI, can be used for prospective motion correction (PMC) of thin-slab TOF acquisitions at 7T. Approach: Interactions between vNavs and TOF sequence modules are examined, and the performance of PMC is investigated under different head motion conditions. Results: While results show that vNavs affect TOF signal, vNav motion correction enables the robust imaging of small vessels. Impact: We show that slab-selective isotropic 0.16-mm TOF-MRA is feasible with whole-brain volumetric navigators for prospective head motion correction, enabling robust in vivo imaging of the human vasculature at an unprecedented scale.
Haenelt et al. (Tue,) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: