Patent ID: 8653816

Claim:
A computer-implemented method in order to compensate for physical motion of a subject during a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan of the subject, based on frequency domain modification and reduction of a search space, the search space itself including a set of potential physical motions of the subject in three-dimensional space of the physical world between a first point in time and a second point in time, the reduction of the search space being based on physical motion information that has been captured by a capturing technique during the MRI scan of the subject, the computer-implemented method comprising: receiving, from a transmitting element and by operation of one or more computer processors of a system compatible with MRI, k-space data as a result of the MRI scan being performed on the subject, wherein the k-space data comprises frequency domain data values that are used in generating a graphical image of the subject, and wherein the frequency domain data values include a plurality of rows including: a first row of data acquired at the first point in time during the MRI scan and a second row of data acquired at the second point in time during the MRI scan; receiving the physical motion information that has been captured by the capturing technique during the MRI scan of the subject, wherein the received physical motion information characterizes physical movement of the subject during the MRI scan; determining a first physical translational motion of the subject between the first point in time at which the first row of data is acquired during the MRI scan and the second point in time at which the second row of data is acquired during the MRI scan, based on the received physical motion information that characterizes the physical movement of the subject; programmatically reducing the search space to a set of candidate physical motions falling within a predefined error margin of the determined first physical translational motion, wherein the set of candidate physical motions is a subset of the set of potential physical motions; and generating a motion-compensated, graphical image of the subject by operation of the one or more computer processors and by modifying one or more of the frequency domain data values of the received k-space data based on the reduced search space, wherein the motion-compensated, graphical image is output for display.