E. Brian Welch1,2, Ad Moerland3,
Elizabeth A. Moore3, J. Christopher Gatenby1, John C.
Gore1
1Vanderbilt University Institute of
Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United
States; 2MR Clinical Science, Philips Healthcare, Highland
Heights, OH, United States; 3MR Clinical Science, Philips
Healthcare, Best, Netherlands
Measurement
of an MR scanners signal stability is important for clinical and research
sites acquiring data known to be adversely affected by system instabilities
such as functional MRI. In particular,
the Weisskoff plot and its associated radius of decorrelation (RDC) metric are
often used to compare systems. The RDC
is known to be influenced by the noise level of the data. However, it has not been widely reported
that the observed RDC is also affected by k-space trajectory. Here we present stability measurements from
a single scanner collected using four distinct k-space acquisition
trajectories: Cartesian, multivane (propeller), spiral and radial.