Controlled Modeling of Cerebrospinal Fluid Flow Artifacts with a Simple Digital Spine Phantom

Robust spine imaging with conventional fast spin echo remains a clinical challenge due to motion artifacts from multiple sources. Flow artifacts from cerebrospinal fluid can be especially problematic for assessments of the spinal cord itself. In addition, judging the effectiveness of various protocol modifications can be challenging in vivo due to the stochastic nature of the relationship between image timing and the cardiac cycle. In this work, we present results of a simple digital spine phantom that can be used in the controlled evaluation of strategies to mitigate artifacts from CSF flow.