CORRECTION OF MOTIONAL ARTIFACTS IN DIFFUSION-WEIGHTED MR-IMAGES USING NAVIGATOR ECHOES

Patient motion can seriously degrade the quality of diffusion-weighted MR images obtained using standard 2DFT imaging procedures. The main s ource of error arises from an MR signal phase-shift error which is pro portional to the magnitude of the motion. A modified pulse sequence is proposed which uses the phase information from an additional spin ech o to correct for patient motion. Application of this technique is demo nstrated for a human brain study, which greatly improves the quantific ation of diffusion values from regions of brain tissue.