Abstract #1540

Software Compensation of Eddy Current Fields in Higher Order Dynamic Shimming

Saikat Sengupta^1,2, Brian E. Welch,^1,3, Adam Anderson^1,4, John Gore^1,4, Malcolm J. Avison^1,4

¹Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Nashville, TN, United States; ²Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States; ³Philips Healthcare,, Cleveland, OH, United States; ⁴Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States

We present a novel method of eddy current compensation for higher order shim induced eddy currents in a multislice Dynamic Shimming (DS) experiment, without the use of extra hardware. This method is based on an assumption of reaching an eddy field steady state during a fast field echo (FFE) acquisition. Using calibration scans, we characterize eddy field interactions between any two shims in terms of correction factor vectors that remain invariant with sample and shim values, for a given time between shim switches. These factors are then used to prospectively compensate for expected eddy fields in any FFE DS experiment.