SENSE from a commercial perspective

SENSE (SENSitivity Encoding) allows reduced scan time in MRI with multiple coils by reducing the field of view (FOV) and unwrapping the subsequent image aliasing using the spatial information derived from the B1 field or sensitivity of the receive coils. The unwrapping requires solving a set of simultaneous equations at each pixel in the image. SENSE images have lower signal to noise (SNR) than conventional images because of the reduced scan time and also because the alias unwrapping gives an additional noise magnification called the geometry factor. The coil design can be optimized to minimize the geometry factor SNR penalty. Numerical conditioning of the equations makes the unwrapped images less noisy when the scan plane and coil result in a poor geometry factor. Measuring the sensitivity reliably is difficult, especially when patient motion is unavoidable. Several methods such as filtering and extrapolation have been developed to make the sensitivity measurement more robust. SENSE can be used to reduce scan time for any MRI application that has sufficient SNR. Some examples include contrast-enhanced angiography, diffusion weighted imaging, abdominal imaging and cardiac imaging.