Reshaping the 2D MPI PSF to be isotropic and sharp using vector acquisition and equalization

Magnetic particle imaging (MPI) is a promising imaging technique for a variety of clinical and scientific applications ranging from angiography ^[1] to stem cell tracking ^[2]. The native 2D point spread function (PSF) presents two challenges: the PSF is anisotropic, and there is an obscuring image “haze” that reduces image contrast due to the long tails of the 2D PSF ^[3]. These effects are illustrated in Fig. 1 (b), (c)). Full deconvolution can improve spatial resolution and anisotropy, but the cost in SNR can be objectionable ^[4-5]. Here, we show that performing k-space equalization and vector acquisition ^[6] can address both of these challenges with minimal loss of SNR and a significant increase in CNR.