An automated approach to fully self-gated free-running cardiac and respiratory motion-resolved 5D whole-heart MRI

Purpose To develop a previously reported, electrocardiogram (ECG)-gated, motion-resolved 5D compressed sensing whole-heart sparse MRI methodology into an automated, optimized, and fully self-gated free-running framework in which external gating or triggering devices are no longer needed. Methods Cardiac and respiratory self-gating signals were extracted from raw image data acquired in 12 healthy adult volunteers with a non-ECG-triggered 3D radial golden-angle 1.5 T balanced SSFP sequence. To extract cardiac self-gating signals, central k-space coefficient signal analysis (k(0) modulation), as well as independent and principal component analyses were performed on selected k-space profiles. The procedure yielding triggers with the smallest deviation from those of the reference ECG was selected for the automated protocol. Thus, optimized cardiac and respiratory self-gating signals were used for binning in a compressed sensing reconstruction pipeline. Coronary vessel length and sharpness of the resultant 5D images were compared with image reconstructions obtained with ECG-gating. Results Principal component analysis-derived cardiac self-gating triggers yielded a smaller deviation (17.4 +/- 6.1ms) from the reference ECG counterparts than k(0) modulation (26 +/- 7.5ms) or independent component analysis (19.8 +/- 5.2ms). Cardiac and respiratory motion-resolved 5D images were successfully reconstructed with the automated and fully self-gated approach. No significant difference was found for coronary vessel length and sharpness between images reconstructed with the fully self-gated and the ECG-gated approach (all P >=.06). Conclusion Motion-resolved 5D compressed sensing whole-heart sparse MRI has successfully been developed into an automated, optimized, and fully self-gated free-running framework in which external gating, triggering devices, or navigators are no longer mandatory. The resultant coronary MRA image quality was equivalent to that obtained with conventional ECG-gating.