Motion correction properties of the shells k-space trajectory

The feasibility of a k-space trajectory that samples data on a set of 3D shells is demonstrated with phantom and volunteer experiments. Details of an interleaved multi-shot, helical spiral pulse sequence and a gridding reconstruction algorithm that uses Voronoi diagrams are provided. The motion-correction properties of the shells k-space trajectory are described. It is shown that when used in conjunction with three point markers, k-space data acquired with the shells trajectory provide a generalization of the RINGLET method, allowing for correction of arbitrary rigid-body motion with six degrees of freedom. Use of dedicated navigator echoes or redundant acquisitions of k-space data are not required. Retrospective motion correction is demonstrated with controlled phantom experiments and with seven healthy human volunteers. The motion correction is shown to improve the images, both qualitatively and quantitatively with a metric calculated from image entropy. Advantages and challenges of the shells trajectory are discussed, with particular attention to acquisition efficiency.