Reduction of motion artifacts in diffusion weighted brain images using first order motion-compensated diffusion gradients

Patient motion during acquisition of diffusion weighted (DW) images causes significant signal dropout. To perform motion correction, DW images of the brain were acquired during gross head motion using a first order motion-compensated diffusion gradient scheme and compared to a traditional DW-EPI sequence. Of the images acquired with the motion-compensated sequence, only 1.5% contained significant signal dropout compared to 36% of the images acquired with the traditional sequence. Overall, the motion-compensated sequence reduced signal dropout by 96% compared to the traditional sequence without increasing scan time or introducing new post-processing protocols.