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Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and spectroscopy (MRS) are popular tools for in vivo imaging and characterization both in a clinical and research setting. RF pulses generate unwanted coherence pathways, which lead to artefacts, and suboptimal suppression of these unwanted coherence resonance pathways can render entire MRS investigations useless. MRS experiments typically employ both a series of pulsed magnetic field gradients (‘crushers’) as well as an alteration of the phase of the RF pulses so that unwanted coherence pathways destructively interfere (‘phase cycling’). Although robust schemes have been developed for 3 RF pulse sequences such as PRESS and STEAM no such generalized method to confront this issue has been developed for sequences such as sLASER (5 RF pulses) and LASER (7 RF pulses), where the number of unwanted coherence pathways is substantially larger.
This technology, referred to as DOTCOPS, is a software algorithm that achieves optimal crushing and phase cycling of magnetic resonance pathways for improved MRI and MRS data collection. Unlike existing methods, this technology uses a fully-automated algorithm that obtains an optimized crusher scheme and phase cycling that leads to a near complete suppression of unwanted coherence pathways. The algorithm is insensitive to motion and applicable to any given sequence of radiofrequency pulse generation, thereby overcoming the chief limitations of competing approaches. As a result, this technology could be easily incorporated with existing MRI/MRS equipment and sequences to improve the quality of MRI and MRS data in clinical and research settings.