MRI ARTIFACTS

[Link] P Patkar
Consultant
MRI Center
Nanavati Hospital
 Artifacts
chemical shift
 Most commonly seen in orbits,
abdomen and spine, where fat and
other tissues form border.
 Due to difference in resonating
frequency of fat and water of body
organs .
 It appears as black border at one W-
F interface and bright on the
opposite side.
 Eliminated by fat suppression
technique.
 Artifacts
chemical shift

Frequency direction
 Artifacts
Aliasing or wrap around

It is a common artifact which

arises when the FOV is smaller

than the body part being

examined

Part of the body which lies

beyond the FOV appears on the

other side of image.

Can be corrected by over

Artifacts
aliasing
 Artifacts
aliasing
k-space

NP NP + HF
 Partial Volume Averaging

 The first slice was

obtained with a thickness
of 10 mm while the
second was at a thickness
of 3 mm.
 Second image shows the
VII and VIII cranial
nerves while the first does
not.
 This is partial volume
averaging
 Inhomogeneous Fat Suppression
Asymmetric Body Part
 This image of the ankle
exhibits poor fat
suppression due to the
asymmetric volume of
this body part.
 This can be corrected
for by creating a more
symmetrical volume
being imaged with
water bags (distilled
water seems to work
best).
 Inhomogeneous Fat Saturation
Across Large Field Of View
 Frequency specific fat
saturation pulses become
less effective when the field
of view is increased.
 Thus fat is precessing at
the expected frequency
only in the centre of the
imaging volume.
 It is best to use smaller
field of views when
applying fat saturation
pulses.
 Artifacts
Gibbs Effect
• Gibbs or truncation artifacts
are bright or dark lines that are
seen parallel and adjacent to
borders of abrupt intensity
change, as when going from
bright CSF to dark spinal cord on
a T2-weighted image.
• In the spinal cord, this artifact can
simulate a small syrinx
• This artifact is related to the finite
number of encoding steps used
by the Fourier transform to
reconstruct an image.
• The more encoding steps, the less
intense and narrower the artifacts.
 Artifacts
Gibbs Effect

128 phase 256 phase

encodes encodes

Effect of increasing no. of phase encoding steps

 Artifacts
Motion
 These occur due to motion of the patient during
acquisition of a sequence.
 Seen as repeating densities oriented in the phase
direction.
 Can be due to
» Physical movement
» Swallowing
» Breathing
» Pulsation
» Peristalsis
 Phase encoded artifacts can be reduced by
– Presaturation pulses(as in breathing,swallowing
peristalsis)
– Respiratory,Peripheral and/or Cardiac gating
Motion artifacts
Physical Motion
 Motion artifacts
Physical movement
 The two distinct spinal
columns are the result
of patient movement.
 Artifacts from patient
movement are widely
varied due to a
dependence on when
during k-space filling
the motion occurs
Motion artifacts
Coughing
 Motion artifacts
Cardiac pulsation
The image was obtained
without any form of
motion compensation

The image was obtained

using cardiac gating. This
effectively eliminated
cardiac motion.
 Motion artifacts
Respiration

 Respiratory motion
with blurring of the
structures as well as
motion-induced
ghosting.
Motion artifacts
Peristalsis
Artifact due to bowel motion
occurring during image
acquisition

With the intravenous

injection of an anti-
spasmodic (Buscopan in this
case).
 Motion artifacts
Swallowing
The image demonstrates the
artifact generated by the
patient swallowing while data
was being obtained

This artifact was

eliminated by applying
Presaturation RF pulses
 Motion artifacts

The fine lines on this

image (seen near the
vertex and in the
brainstem) were
caused by the patient
moving in the last few
seconds of the scan.
Only the outside edges
of K-space were being
filled,
 Artifacts
Slice Overlap

 It is the loss of signal

seen in an image from
a multi angle,multi
slice acquisition.
 Seen most commonly
in lumbar spine.
 Due to pre-excitation
(saturation) of the
protons in the area
where the slices
intersect.
 Artifacts
Slice Overlap

 Dark bands are

visible on the T1-
weighted Spin echo
axial image.
 The sagittal image
illustrates where the
slices were obtained
and how they
intersect posteriorly.
 Artifacts
Cross talk
 Similar to slice
overlap.
 Due to imperfect slice
excitation, i.e non
rectangular, adjacent
slices overlap each
other.
 Can be reduced by
providing a gap
between the slices or
interleaving the slices
 Artifacts
Metallic(susceptibility) artifacts
 Occur due to microscopic
gradients or variations in
magnetic field that occur near
the interfaces of ferro -magnetic
substances of different magnetic
susceptibility.
 These are worst with long echo
times.
 More pronounced on Gradient
echo images
 Less pronounced on FSE
sequences
 Metallic(susceptibility) artifacts

 The patient was

wearing a metal-
studded belt during
this coronal T1-
weighted abdominal
scan.
 Metallic(susceptibility) artifacts

Some metal dentalwork

can cause an
associated artifact
distant from the
source.
 Metallic(susceptibility) artifacts

Metallic Prosthesis
 Metallic(susceptibility) artifacts

•Small metal flake

within spinal canal.

•Less obvious on
FSE sequence
Metallic(susceptibility) artifacts
Mascara
 Artifacts
Entry Slice Artifact
 Occurs as a result of
flow related
enhancement of blood
entering into a set of
slices.
 Characterized by a
bright signal in a vessel
in the first slice the
vessel enters.
 Fades in a few slices.
 Can be confused for
thrombosis
 Artifacts
Fast Spin Echo Without Flow Compensation

 Note the appearance of two

spinal cords in the first T2-
weighted Fast Spin Echo
axial image.
 The artifactual extra spinal
cord is due to flow artifact
from the pulsatile CSF flow.
 Flow compensation
(gradient moment nulling of
the first order of flow) is
applied in the second image,
eliminating the artifact.
 Artifacts
Zipper Artifact
 May be due to
various causes
 Most related to
hardware or software
problems.
 May occur because of
a RF from radio
transmitters , and are
perpendicular to the
frequency axis of the
image.
 Artifacts
Magic Angle
 Seen most commonly in tendon and
ligaments oriented at 550 to the main
magnetic field.
 This results as the dipolar interaction
between awter protons and adjacent
collagen goes to zero at this angle.
 There is a increase in T2*of the
protons giving immobile spins.
 field strength has no effect
 evident on short TE images
– effect disappears on T2 weighted
images
 Artifacts
Central point

 It is dot of
increased signal
intensity in the
center of image.
 Caused by
constant offset of
the DC voltage in
the receiver.
 Artifacts
“Black boundary”

Opposed phase
 Artifacts
Moire fringes
 Artifacts
RF- overflow
 It causes a non-
uniform, washed –out
appearance to an
image.
 Occurs when the
signal received by the
scanner from the
patient is too intense
to be accurately
digitized.
 Artifacts
RF- overflow

 Non-uniform washed
out appearance due to
RF-overflow artifact
 Artifacts
RF Interference

 The wide band of RF

noise on this axial
head scan is due to
unshielded electric
components in the
magnet room, in this
case, a ventilator.
 Artifacts
zero fill
 It results due to an
abrupt change from
signal to no signal at
all.(Data in K space
set to zero by the
scanner)
 Appears in images as
Zebra stripes or
other anomalies.
 Artifacts
Phased Array Coil Malfunction

 One coil of a phased

array multi-coil
(pelvic array in this
case) is out of phase
with the other coils.
 Artifacts
Anatomical Distortion

 We have encountered
this artifact only once.
The cause of the
distortion on the first
image is unknown.
 By just running this
sequence again the
problem disappeared.
 Conclusion
 Understanding the
appearance and
mechanism of MRI
Artifacts allows
one to ameliorate
their effects and
avoid
misinterpretation