Dear all,

I'm trying to use the Pipeline v.3.6.0 pre-release to run it on General 
Electric 32-ch coil data.

I am not sure that I am doing the right preprocessing steps to convert the data 
I get from the scanner into the format expected by the pipeline. I would be 
grateful if someone could confirm that what I am doing is right, or 
alternatively indicate which are the correct steps.

The data I got consists of real and imaginary images for 2 echo times, with a 
TE difference of 2 ms. These are the steps I am following:

1 ) Generate a complex 4D image with two volumes corresponding to the 2 TEs 
(using fslcomplex).
2 ) Compute the magnitude image for the first echo (MAGNITUDE.nii.gz).
3 ) Divide the second complex image by the first one to obtain a complex image 
with phase equal to the phase difference between echoes (ECHO_RATIO.nii.gz).
4 ) Run prelude on ECHO_RATIO.nii.gz, which returns an unwrapped phase 
difference image (PHASE_DIFF.nii.gz). This step may not be needed, as I cannot 
see any wraps in ECHO_RATIO.nii.gz, but perhaps for other datasets this will 
not be the case.
5 ) Multiply PHASE_DIFF.nii.gz by -1000/(6.28*2) to obtain the fieldmap 
(FIELDMAP.nii.gz). The factor 2 corresponds to the 2 ms TE difference, the 
factor 1000 to the conversion to seconds, and the minus sign to ensure that the 
high intensities in the fieldmap correspond to areas of strong susceptibility, 
like for SIEMENS fieldmaps. If I am not wrong, this is needed because of 
different handedness in GE and SIEMENS systems.
6 ) Demean the fieldmap. I have noticed in the SIEMENS fieldmap preprocessing 
SiemensFieldMapPreprocessingAll.sh, fsl_prepare_fieldmap has a demeaning step 
which I cannot see it is done in GeneralElectricFieldMapPreprocessingAll.sh, so 
I am including this before handing the fieldmap over to the pipeline. Not sure 
I should do this, though.
7 ) Merge the result in one 4D image, with the demeaned fieldmap as the first 
volume and the magnitude image as the second one.

Which is the magnitude of the shift that I should expect? I am looking at the 
shift map obtained from one of the HCP subjects and the max values are around 
.1, whereas for the General Electric data the max is around 6 times larger. Is 
such a big difference possible between scanners or this means I am missing 
something ?

The sample spacing I am using is 0.000016, corresponding to the inverse of the 
product of the dicom fields (0018,0095) and (0028,0010), as indicated in 
PreFreesurferPipelineBatch.sh

Any help or clarification is greatly appreciated!
Best regards,


Benjamín Garzón, PhD
Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society
Aging Research Center | 113 30 Stockholm | Gävlegatan 16
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> | 
www.ki-su-arc.se<http://www.ki-su-arc.se/>
______________________________________
Karolinska Institutet – a medical university


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