Physics Lectures For Residents: MRI Artifact

Physics Lectures for Residents
MRI Artifact
Prof. J.K Tonui, PhD
School of Medicine,
Department of Radiology and Imaging.
Learning Objectives
 At the end of this lecture, the student is expected to:
 Describe the causes of major artifacts in MR Images.
 Describe and understand how to reduce the various types of
artifacts in MR images:
o Motion artifact;
o Flow artifact;
o Metal artifact, and
o Aliasing or phase-warp artifact.
2 RIB 810, 811 & 812 Imaging Physics 8/19/2019

Introduction
 MR images
 Not only have excellent contrast resolution, but
 Are also riddled with many artifacts, hence
 It is important to recognize these artifacts and understand how
they are created and reduced/eliminated.

Image Artifacts
 MRI artifacts
 Refer to pixels that do not faithfully represent the anatomy being

studied, where
 Images of underlying anatomy are visible but are masked by
spurious signals that do not correspond to actual tissue at that
location, and
 The artifacts may or may not be easily discernible from normal
anatomy, particularly if they are of low intensities.

Classification of MRI Artifacts
 MRI artifacts are classified into 3-groups according to how
they are produced:

1. Patient related - physical motion of pt. and internal
physiological motion such as blood flow;
2. Signal processing dependent- either a measurement technique
or parameter, and
3. Hardware related - malfunction of a component of the MRI
equipment.
Types of MRI Artifacts
 Regardless of the origin, the common MRI artifacts are:
 Motion related artifacts;
 Para-magnetic artifacts ;
 Phase Wrap artifacts;
 Frequency artifacts;
 Susceptibility artifacts;
 Clipping artifact;
 Chemical Shift Artifact ;
 Spike artifact , and
 “Zebra” artifact .

Motion Artifacts
 Motion artifact
 Is one of the most common artefact in MR imaging, and
 It causes either a ghost image for periodic motion or a diffuse image
for random motion, usually in the phase-encoding (PE) direction,

and
 Is produced by any movement in the patient body (either
physical/physiological or voluntary/involuntray motions).

Motion Artifacts
 Motion artifacts
 Are caused by the movement of tissues during the data acquisition
period, and
 The specific appearance of the artifact depends on the nature of the
motion (random or periodic) and the particular measurement

technique, and
 Result from tissues excited at one location (voxel) but are mapped
and displayed at different location during detection/measurement.

Motion Artifacts
Periodic flow from the Random motion Periodic motion artifact

aorta will be misregistered artifact (blurred (ghost images).
as multiple ghosts (arrows). images)

Motion Artifacts
 Note that
 Motion in all 3-planes leads to ghosts or blurring in PE direction, because
 Patient motion is usually much slower than the fast sampling process along
FE direction (in ms), which

 Causes mild blurring motion artifacts in FE direction, but
 Sampling along PE direction needs all phase encoding steps, hence take
longer time in order of seconds, which
 Allows large amount of motion to take place resulting in disturbing artifacts.

Motion Artifacts
 Hence,
 Motion artifacts are caused by phase mis-mapping of the

protons, because
 Of the time-lapse between excitation and signal sampling,
which
 May cause the protons to move, due to respiration, pulsation
or other motions thro’ the gradient magnetic field, thus
acquiring an additional phase shift.

Motion Artifacts
 Fig.
 Shows a spin with a frequency of

21.3 MHz and a 0º phase moving
from right to left during the GPE,
 During this movement, the spin
changes frequency hence
 The phase changes also as compared
to its original position.

Motion Artifacts
 When the image is reconstructed,
 The position of the signal is put in the wrong place in the image,
but
 There are techniques, such as “flow compensation” or “cardiac
triggering” , that minimize or eliminate motion related artifacts.
 Note that
 Motion artifacts are displayed in the phase encoding direction.

Motion Artifacts
 Major causes of motion artefacts are:
 Esophageal contraction and vacular pulsation during head and
neck imaging.
 Respiration and cardiac activity during thoraic and abdominal
imaging,
 Bowel peristalasis during abdominal and pelvic imaging.

Motion Artifacts - Reduction
 Motion artefacts can be reduced by:
 Shortening the scan time by choosing smaller MXPE;
 Consider swapping phase and frequency directions to move
artifact away from area of interest;

 Patient immobilisation, and
 Increase the number of averagaing, etc.

Flow Artifacts
 Flow artifacts
 This is a special form of motion artifact, caused by flow of blood
or CSF, and
 Occur whenever magnetized protons flow into or out of the slice
being imaged, and

 Can be manifested as either:
o Altered intravascular signal (flow enhancement or flow-related signal
loss), or
o Flow-related artefacts (ghost images or spatial misregistration).
Flow Artifacts
 Flow enhancement,
 Is also known as inflow effect, and
 Is caused by fully magnetized protons entering the imaged slice
while the stationary protons have not fully regained their

magnetization, where
 The fully magnetized protons yield a high signal in comparison
with the rest of the surroundings.

Flow Artifacts
 Note that
 High velocity flow causes the protons entering the image to be removed
from it by the time the 180o pulse is administered, and

 The effect is that these protons do not contribute to the echo and are
registered as a signal void or flow-related signal loss as shown below.
Flow-related signal loss in the carotid and basillary

arteries (T2 axial study of the brain).
Flow Artifacts
(a) (b)
 (a) No flow compensation. Misregistration artifact from CSF

flow appears anterior to the spinal canal (arrow).
 (b) First-order flow compensation in readout and slice selection
directions. CSF is properly mapped into the spinal canal.
Flow Artifacts
 Spatial misregistration
 Manifests as displacement of an intravascular signal owing to
position encoding of a voxel in the PE direction preceding FE by

time TE/2, and
 The intensity of the artifact is dependent on the signal intensity
from the vessel, and is less apparent with increased TE.

Flow Artifacts - Reduction
 Flow artifacts
 Can be reduced using flow compensation, which
 Adds additional gradient pulses to the pulse sequence to correct
for phase shifts experienced by the moving protons, and

 Is also called gradient motion rephasing (GMR), or the motion
artifact suppression technique (MAST), and

 The amount of phase accumulation is related to the velocity of
the motion.
Metal Artifacts
 Metal artifacts
 Are also referred as paramagnetic artifacts, and
 Occur at interfaces of tissues with different-,which
 Cause local magnetic fields to distort the external Bo, which
 In turn, changes the precession or Lamor frequency in the
tissue leading to spatial mismapping of information.

Metal Artifacts
 The degree of distortion depends on:
 Type of metal (stainless steel having a greater distorting effect
than titanium alloy), and

 Type of interface (most striking effect at soft tissue-metal
interfaces), as well as
 The pulse sequence and imaging parameters.

Metal Artifacts
 Metal artifacts
 Are caused by external ferromagnetics , e.g. cobalt, iron, which
 May change resonance frequency beyond the range used in
MRI, and
 The protons will not react to the RF excitation pulse, and
 Manifestation of these artifacts is variable, including total signal
loss (i.e. black spots called blooming artifact), peripheral high

signal and image distortion.
Metal in Bone Artifacts
Blooming artifact or Peripheral high signal

black spots i.e. bright spot

Metal Artifacts

Metal Artifacts
 Note that
 Not all metals create such severe artifacts, but
 It depends on the amount of iron, where
 Very small pieces of iron, such as an iron splinter or surgical clips can
cause havoc to the image.
 Warning
 Screen pt. for metal implants before performing MRI, because
 The implants will ruin both image and pt.!

Metal Artifacts
 Note that
 Aluminium and titanium produce much less severe artifacts,
hence
 Patients with a titanium hip or knee implant can go into a MRI
scanner without any problem.

Metal Artifacts - Reduction
 Metal artifacts can be reduced by:
 Orientating the long axis of implant parallel to Bo;
 Choosing proper FE direction where this artifact is most common;
 Using smaller voxel sizes, fast imaging sequences, increased
readout bandwidth, and avoiding GE imaging when metal is

present, and
 Using MARS (metal artefact reduction sequence) which applies
addition gradient in GSS during FE is applied.

Aliasing Artifacts
 Aliasing artifacts
 Are also called phase-wrap or wrap-around or fold-over artifacts,
and
 Are caused by mis-mapping of anatomy that is outside the FOV
but within the slice, and
 They occur when the FOV is smaller than the anatomical slice
selected or being imaged, and
 Image is formed on the opposite side of the image.

Aliasing Artifacts
 Phase wrap artifacts
 Are caused by mis-mapping of phase, which
 Occurs when the FOV is smaller than the object, where
 The part of the body outside the FOV will be “wrapped around”
into the image, as shown in figures in next slide, but

 With the “NoWrap” or “Double Matrix” option switched on, this
artifact can be avoided, with a time penalty.

Aliasing Artifacts
Arrows show Phase Wrap artifacts and operator

forgot to turn on No Wrap button

Aliasing Artifacts - Reduction
 Elimination of aliasing artifacts:
 Use a larger FOV (called oversampling), or
 Use “no phase wrap” button
o This acquires data for a larger FOV and discards the data outside
your original FOV, but

o It takes 2x longer to do since it is done in the PE direction, unless
NEX is cut in half.

 Aliasing artifact
 Is caused by under sampling in PE direction, and
 Is eliminated by doubling the FOV,

 From the Fig. in previous slice,
 Aliasing in the readout direction occurs when tissue outside the
chosen FOVRO is excited, and

 Occurs when an FOVRO smaller than atomical slice selected, and
 The frequencies for this tissue exceed the Nyquist limit for the
sampling conditions and

 Are mapped to a lower frequency, a situation known as high-frequency
aliasing or frequency wraparound as shown in Fig. in next slide.

 Oversampling process
 Results in an increase
of the Nyquist
frequency for the
measurement as
shown in this Fig.

 No phase-wrap up technique
 Uses large FOV also to avoid no phase-wrap artifacts, where
o Finer k steps are used in PE direction, and
o Unwanted FOV is cut off, but
o Then doubles acquisition time!

Physics Lectures For Residents: MRI Artifact

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Physics Lectures for Residents

Prof. J.K Tonui, PhD

 Describe the causes of major artifacts in MR Images.

 Describe and understand how to reduce the various types of

o Metal artifact, and

o Aliasing or phase-warp artifact.

2 RIB 810, 811 & 812 Imaging Physics 8/19/2019

 Not only have excellent contrast resolution, but

 Are also riddled with many artifacts, hence

 It is important to recognize these artifacts and understand how

they are created and reduced/eliminated.

3 RIB 810, 811 & 812 Imaging Physics 8/19/2019

 Refer to pixels that do not faithfully represent the anatomy being

4 RIB 810, 811 & 812 Imaging Physics 8/19/2019

they are produced:

 Phase Wrap artifacts;

 Chemical Shift Artifact ;

 Spike artifact , and

6 RIB 810, 811 & 812 Imaging Physics 8/19/2019

 Is one of the most common artefact in MR imaging, and

 It causes either a ghost image for periodic motion or a diffuse image

for random motion, usually in the phase-encoding (PE) direction,

physical/physiological or voluntary/involuntray motions).

7 RIB 810, 811 & 812 Imaging Physics 8/19/2019

 Are caused by the movement of tissues during the data acquisition

motion (random or periodic) and the particular measurement

and displayed at different location during detection/measurement.

8 RIB 810, 811 & 812 Imaging Physics 8/19/2019

Periodic flow from the Random motion Periodic motion artifact

9 RIB 810, 811 & 812 Imaging Physics 8/19/2019

 Motion in all 3-planes leads to ghosts or blurring in PE direction, because

FE direction (in ms), which

longer time in order of seconds, which

 Allows large amount of motion to take place resulting in disturbing artifacts.

10 RIB 810, 811 & 812 Imaging Physics 8/19/2019

 Motion artifacts are caused by phase mis-mapping of the

11 RIB 810, 811 & 812 Imaging Physics 8/19/2019

 Shows a spin with a frequency of

12 RIB 810, 811 & 812 Imaging Physics 8/19/2019

triggering” , that minimize or eliminate motion related artifacts.

 Motion artifacts are displayed in the phase encoding direction.

13 RIB 810, 811 & 812 Imaging Physics 8/19/2019

 Esophageal contraction and vacular pulsation during head and

14 RIB 810, 811 & 812 Imaging Physics 8/19/2019

 Shortening the scan time by choosing smaller MXPE;

 Consider swapping phase and frequency directions to move

artifact away from area of interest;

 Increase the number of averagaing, etc.

15 RIB 810, 811 & 812 Imaging Physics 8/19/2019

 This is a special form of motion artifact, caused by flow of blood

being imaged, and

o Altered intravascular signal (flow enhancement or flow-related signal

 Is also known as inflow effect, and

 Is caused by fully magnetized protons entering the imaged slice

while the stationary protons have not fully regained their

with the rest of the surroundings.

17 RIB 810, 811 & 812 Imaging Physics 8/19/2019

from it by the time the 180o pulse is administered, and

registered as a signal void or flow-related signal loss as shown below.

Flow-related signal loss in the carotid and basillary

 (a) No flow compensation. Misregistration artifact from CSF

 Manifests as displacement of an intravascular signal owing to

position encoding of a voxel in the PE direction preceding FE by