The impact of motion and motion correction in dynamic glucose enhanced MRI

Dynamic glucose-enhanced (DGE) MRI is a dynamic chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) method that can provide information about D-glucose uptake in tissue. DGE signal changes are small and so-called pseudo-DGE effects can appear as true DGE effects. In this study, we investigated how motion and motion correction influenced the DGE effects using both a realistic (measured) motion pattern and an arbitrary motion pattern. We observed that pseudo-DGE effects are governed by the head motion pattern and originate either from tissue mixing at tissue interfaces or B0-shifts. Although motion correction can reduce these effects, new pseudo-DGE effects can also be introduced.