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Design, construction and evaluation of an anthropomorphic head phantom with realistic susceptibility artifacts
Author(s) -
Shmueli Karin,
Thomas David L.,
Ordidge Roger J.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
journal of magnetic resonance imaging
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.563
H-Index - 160
eISSN - 1522-2586
pISSN - 1053-1807
DOI - 10.1002/jmri.20993
Subject(s) - imaging phantom , artifact (error) , quantitative susceptibility mapping , biomedical engineering , materials science , nuclear magnetic resonance , physics , computer science , nuclear medicine , magnetic resonance imaging , optics , medicine , computer vision , radiology
Abstract Purpose To design and construct an anthropomorphic head phantom using materials of appropriate magnetic susceptibility and air spaces of realistic dimensions, with the aim of reproducing the susceptibility artifacts found in the human brain. Materials and Methods The phantom is based on a plastic skull filled with MnCl 2 ‐doped water. Materials to mimic soft tissue (wax) and bone (plastic skull) were chosen based on mass susceptibility measurements using a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetometer. The phantom was designed for and evaluated at 4.7T using field mapping and echo‐planar imaging (EPI). Results The main magnetic field ( B 0 ) maps of the phantom resemble those of four volunteers' brains and have similar standard deviations (SDs). Maps of the B 0 field gradients in the phantom and real brains are also similar. The phantom has relaxation times close to those of brain tissue at 4.7T. Gradient‐echo (GE)‐EPI images of the phantom suffer from susceptibility artifacts comparable to those in real heads and at anatomically realistic locations. Conclusion The phantom is a useful tool for evaluating and comparing different susceptibility artifact reduction techniques. The phantom could also be used to test CT‐MRI coregistration in the presence of susceptibility artifacts since the water‐filled brain cavity is both CT‐ and MR‐visible. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2007;26:202–207. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.