ABSTRACT
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a safe medical imaging modality that can produce high-quality images. Other popular imaging modalities do not satisfy both these desirable properties—ultrasound is safe but generally yields images of poorer quality, whereas x-ray computer tomography (CT) can yield good-quality images but at the cost of potential health hazard. The main shortcoming of MRI (compared to ultrasound and CT) is its prolonged data acquisition time. The large scan time results in (1) inconvenience to patients as they have to spend a considerable amount of time in the scanner and (2) degradation in the quality of static MR images by introducing motion artifacts. In the past two decades, a considerable amount of effort has been expended in devising ways to reduce the scan time in MRI.
