HEALPix View-order for 3D+time Radial Self-Navigated Motion-Corrected ZTE MRI

In MRI there has been no 3D+time radial view-order which meets all the desired characteristics for simultaneous dynamic/high-resolution imaging, such as for self-navigated motion-corrected high resolution neuroimaging. In this work, we examine the use of Hierarchical Equal Area iso-Latitude Pixelization (HEALPix) for generation of three dimensional dynamic (3D+time) radial view-orders for MRI, and compare to a selection of commonly used 3D view-orders. The resulting trajectories were evaluated through simulation of the point spread function and slanted surface object suitable for modulation transfer function, contrast ratio, and SNR measurement. Results from the HEALPix view-order were compared to Generalized Spiral, Golden Means, and Random view-orders. We report the first use of the HEALPix view-order to acquire in-vivo brain images.