Evaluation of motion effects on parallel MR imaging with precalibration*

Several parallel imaging techniques such as SMASH, SENSE, k-space inherited parallel acquisition (KIPA) and others use reference (calibration) scans to find the parameters required for image reconstruction. Reference data is used to estimate coil sensitivity profiles for image domain techniques such as SENSE or reconstruction coefficients for k-space domain methods such as SMASH and KIPA. Any motion between the reference and accelerated imaging scans can make the reconstruction coefficients determined from the reference scan data suboptimal, resulting in an artifactual reconstruction. This work aims at comparing the effects of motion on the performance of three parallel imaging methods: SENSE, variable-density SENSE and KIPA, which all require one or more reference scans for calibration. (C) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.