Adaptive Real-time Control and Online Reconstruction of Free-Breathing Abdominal MRF

Motivation: Abdominal MRF can require long breath-holds. Free-breathing MRF with retrospective binning and offline reconstruction does not guarantee adequate map quality. Goal(s): Develop a self-binning, self-terminating MRF sequence for free-breathing abdominal imaging, providing real-time adjustments to the acquisition for improved image quality. Approach: The proposed MRF sequence monitors respiratory states in real-time, adapts or extends the acquisition based on reconstruction feedback, and performs iterative conjugate gradient reconstruction online. Results: The free-breathing approach shows promising results mitigating motion artifacts, producing similar maps to conventional breath-hold results. Sequence termination commands are processed within 0.55 seconds, while reconstruction is completed within 22 seconds. Impact: This work enables free-breathing abdominal MRF scans with real-time control and online reconstruction. This approach potentially allows for shorter scans with improved map quality without breath-holds. New strategies for real-time control and adaptive MRF imaging can now be investigated.