Rapid in vivo proton shimming

A rapid and completely automated method of adjusting the magnetic field ( B 0 ) homogeneity for in vivo proton spectroscopy and imaging is described. Bo inhomogeneity maps are generated by a gradient‐recalled echo pulse sequence in which the frequency dispersion is chosen to eliminate the effects of the fat/water chemical shift. Low‐order shim values are derived by magnitude‐weighted least‐squares fits to the B 0 maps and automatically applied as DC offsets to the X, Y , and Z gradient amplifiers. Imaging with chemical shift selective saturation is used as a measure of the efficacy of the technique. Results indicate that AUTOSHIM improves the overall homogeneity; however, local high‐order field distortions which cannot be corrected by linear gradients are generated by certain air/tissue and bone/tissue morphology. In such cases a “ZOOM SHIM” may be applied over a limited region of interest for local homogeneity improvement at the expense of other regions. It is suggested that such scans are a necessity for recording the homogeneity during clinical MR spectroscopy. © 1991 Academic Press. Inc.