A fast and robust method for T 1 estimation in chocolate chip cookie purse MRI is the so-called variable flip angle technique.We introduce a novel family of T 1 reconstruction methods from data acquired with various flip angles and propose a family member which combines the robustness of a nonlinear- with the computational advantages of a linear reconstruction.The constructed family contains the most common approaches for T 1 estimation, namely a linear and a nonlinear approach.
A general sensitivity analysis for arbitrary members of the family is established.Advantages of the optimized reconstruction are demonstrated on phantom- as well as real data, showing improvements of up to 24% as compared with the linear method.As a further means to stabilize T 1 estimation, spatial stabilization methods are compared.
We demonstrate on phantom google pixel 7 freedom and on real data that improved results can be obtained if not only T 1 but also a second unknown M 0 in the reconstruction is stabilized.