Effect of respiratory motion on gated torso MRI in an upright 0.5 T scanner with seated and standing subjects

Motivation: The study focuses on the development of a MoCo technique for torso MRI in upright scanner. Goal(s): Respiratory gated MRI acquisition was achieved by tracking respiratory-related torso motion under the rigid-body assumption. Approach: Optical tracking of torso motion was used to trigger the MRI acquisition at the beginning of each exhalation period. Results: Respiratory gating reduces motion induced artefacts in MRI of seated subjects, but was not able to eliminate motion effects in MRI of standing subjects. In its future development it would be paired with retrospective motion correction techniqueImpact: The aim is to improve MR image quality on an 0.5T upright scanner where body motion is mostly unconstrained. It would particularly improve image quality in patients who are not supine, so increasing patient comfort and reducing the scanning time.