Inter-shot Motion Correction of Segmented 3D-GRASE ASL Perfusion Imaging with Self-Navigation and CAIPI

PurposeSegmented 3D Gradient and Spin Echo (GRASE) is commonly used in Arterial Spin Labeling (ASL) perfusion imaging. However, it is vulnerable to inter-shot motion, leading to subtraction errors that cannot be corrected. We developed a retrospective self-navigated inter-shot motion correction method for segmented 3D-GRASE ASL imaging with Controlled Aliasing in Parallel Imaging (CAIPI). MethodsMultiple shots, each uniformly covering k-space at distinct sample locations, allow a self-navigator image to be reconstructed using SENSE for each shot. Rigid-body motion estimation across the self-navigators is incorporated into a motion-compensated forward model for image reconstruction. To support self-navigation, two CAIPI-sampled segmented 3D-GRASE trajectories that ensure full k-space coverage were explored for point spread function (PSF) profiles and g-factor effects. Our approach was evaluated against conventional inter-volume registration and a previously proposed method, alignedSENSE. Additionally, we compared tag-control interleaving strategies to assess their impact on motion robustness in five healthy volunteers with instructed head motion. ResultsOur method effectively reduced motion artifacts and outperformed conventional inter-volume correction by 12.3% in correlation coefficient, 4.5% in Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM), and 40.1% in temporal SNR. It matched alignedSENSE performance while requiring only 20% of the computational time. All evaluated CAIPI sampling variants enabled robust motion correction, although tradeoffs were observed between through-plane blurring and SNR performance. The tag-control (T/C) inner loop acquisition yielded better motion robustness across all quantitative metrics. ConclusionSelf-navigated inter-shot motion correction using CAIPI sampling and a T/C inner loop for segmented 3D-GRASE ASL can improve image quality and motion robustness.