Magnetic resonance imaging with composite (dual) gradients

• DOI: 10.1002/cmr.b.20134
• Publication Date: 2009-04-20T21:13:57Z
• Authors: Dennis L. Parker; K. Craig Goodrich; J. Rock Hadley; Seong‐Eun Kim; Sung M. Moon; Blaine A. Chronik; Ulrich Fontius; Franz Schmitt
• Keywords: 03 medical and health sciences; 0302 clinical medicine

AbstractThe tradeoff between gradient performance factors, size of the imaging region, and physiological factors such as nerve stimulation typically leads to compromises in gradient design and ultimately suboptimal imaging performance. Local gradient systems can add some performance flexibility, but are cumbersome to set up and remove. In nearly all conventional MRI systems, the use of local gradients precludes the use of the more homogeneous whole body gradients. This article presents the concept of dynamically selectable composite gradient systems where local gradients and whole body gradients can be selected independently and simultaneously. The relative performance of whole body, insert, and composite gradients is predicted for echoplanar, turbo spin echo, and steady state free precession. A realization of the concept is presented. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Concepts Magn Reson Part B (Magn Reson Engineering) 35B: 89–97, 2009