Proton-free induction decay MRSI at 7 T in the human brain using an egg-shaped modified rosette K-space trajectory.

Purpose: Proton (H)-MRSI via spatial-spectral encoding poses high demands on gradient hardware at ultra-high fields and high-resolutions. Rosette trajectories help alleviate these problems, but at reduced SNR-efficiency because of their k-space densities not matching any desired k-space filter. We propose modified rosette trajectories, which more closely match a Hamming filter, and thereby improve SNR performance while still staying within gradient hardware limitations and without prolonging scan time.

Methods: Analytical and synthetic simulations were validated with phantom and in vivo measurements at 7 T. The rosette and modified rosette trajectories were measured in five healthy volunteers in 6 min in a 2D slice in the brain. An elliptical phase-encoding sequence was measured in one volunteer in 22 min, and a 3D sequence was measured in one volunteer within 19 min. The SNR per-unit-time, linewidth, Cramer-Rao lower bounds (CRLBs), lipid contamination, and data quality of the proposed modified rosette trajectory were compared to the rosette trajectory.

Results: Using the modified rosette trajectories, an improved k-space weighting function was achieved resulting in an SNR per-unit-time increase of up to 12% compared to rosette's and 23% compared to elliptical phase-encoding, dependent on the two additional trajectory parameters. Similar results were achieved for the theoretical SNR calculation based on k-space densities, as well as when using the pseudo-replica method for simulated, in vivo, and phantom data. The CRLBs of γ-aminobutyric acid and N-acetylaspartylglutamate improved non-significantly for the modified rosette trajectory, whereas the linewidths and lipid contamination remained similar.

Conclusion: By optimizing the shape of the rosette trajectory, the modified rosette trajectories achieved higher SNR per-unit-time and enhanced data quality at the same scan time.