Simulation of susceptibility artifacts in 2D and 3D Fourier transform spin-echo and gradient-echo magnetic resonance imaging.

A method is presented for simulating susceptibility artifacts in 2D and 3D spin-echo and gradient-echo imaging of arbitrary susceptibility distributions. The method incorporates object induced field perturbations in the time domain (k-space) and is demonstrated for spherical nonuniformities in susceptibility. Both simulations and experimental results for multi-slice 2D and 3D imaging of phantoms and human subjects are provided.