An Evaluation of the Use of Magnetic Field Maps to Undistort Echo-Planar Images

When a head is placed in an MRI scanner, differences between the magnetic susceptibility of tissue, bone, and air distort the magnetic field. While some of the resulting inhomogeneity can be corrected by the shimming process, much of it cannot, and this causes distortion (sometimes referred to as geometric distortion) of echo-planar images (EPIs). One strategy for the correction of distortion is to acquire a map of the magnetic field achieved in...