Characterisation of Motion-Induced Field Distortions in Spectroscopic Imaging With Prospective Motion Correction

Introduction The long scan duration makes spectroscopic imaging (SI) experiments particularly susceptible to motion-induced artifacts. Prospective motion correction based on an optical tracking system [1] has recently been proposed for 2D SI in the human brain [2]. Additionally, retrospective phase correction using the interleaved reference scan (IRS) method has been applied for the correction of motion-induced frequency drifts [2, 3]. The method has been validated for the correction of axial head rotations during the scan, which implies mainly in-plane motion when a transverse SI slice is used. In this work, an SI experiment with through-plane head motion was performed, using prospective motion correction and retrospective phase correction. Furthermore, the motion-induced shim changes in the SI slice were characterized to evaluate the potential of real-time shimming for motion-corrected SI measurements.