Patent ID: 8472690
Filing Date: 2013-06-25
Classification: G01R

Abstract:
1. A method for operating an magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner, comprising: acquiring a phase contrast magnetic resonance (PCMR) image of a blood vessel of interest in a subject using a selected PCMR protocol that includes a selected velocity encoding anti-aliasing limit (VENC); determining whether or not aliasing is present by detecting if one or more velocity discontinuities exist between two or more neighboring pixels located within the PCMR image of the blood vessel; and, if aliasing is determined to be present, computing a corrected maximum peak velocity (MPV) in the PCMR image from a pixel in the PCMR image whose phase is maximally aliased from the following formula: deriving a new VENC as the corrected maximum peak velocity multiplied by a factor K whose value is selected to both event aliasing and achieve an adequate signal-to-noise ratio (SNR); and, repeating the acquisition of the PCMR image of the blood vessel using the new VENC.