Using Pilot Tone for Sequence-Independent Motion Detection in the Head

Motivation: Motion artifacts are a major cause for rescans or for the patient to be recalled for another scanning session; this results in patient discomfort, workflow disruptions and additional costs. Goal(s): Prospectively provide MR operators with a “motion sensor signal” indicating subject motion to assist them in detecting and reacting to motion events. Approach: Design a sequence-agnostic Pilot Tone processing pipeline to detect motion and predict image quality degradation. Results: We showed that Pilot Tone can be used to detect head movement and predict with high accuracy whether the resulting image will be usable for diagnosis. Impact: This work shows that Pilot Tone can be used for prospective motion detection and image degradation prediction. Such a method may lead to a practically applicable solution to improve the MR workflow, thus reducing patient burden and costs.