Comparison of 1-d and 2-d surface coil arrays for accelerated volume MR imaging using sensitivity encoding

The sensitivity encoding (SENSE) method of parallel MR accelerated imaging is evaluated and compared for 1-d and 2-d surface coil array geometries. Accelerated MR imaging using SENSE may be applied to volume imaging using either 3-d or 2-d multi-slice acquisition strategies. For higher accelerations such as rate R=4, 3-d SENSE may be applied along either or both phase encode directions. Image quality (SENSE g-factor) is compared for R=4 acceleration implemented with a reduced number of phase encodes in the y-direction, and (assuming a 3-d acquisition) with a reduced number of phase encodes in both yand z-directions. Simulations show that the performance for 1-d and 2-d array geometries depends highly on the slice orientation.