Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a non-invasive imaging technique which is well suited for the diagnosis and monitoring of cardiovascular diseases because of its ability of visualizing the anatomy and the functional information of the heart. Additionally, with this technique a diversity of image contrasts is provided. However, cardiovascular MRI is challenging due to e.g. myocardial contraction and respiratory motion and thus not well-established for the clinical practice yet.

With iterative reconstruction methods, the acquisition time can be clearly reduced and the artifacts minimized at the same time. With the help of these methods a representation of the heart with a well spatial and temporal resolution (4-D representation) can be created.

Additionally, quantitative representation of physical relaxation times can be generated with so-called mapping techniques based on these different image contrasts. The aim of this PhD project is the extension of the temporal 3-D representation imaging technique for the heart with such a multi-contrast dimension. This extra dimension can lead to an enhanced separation between pathological and healthy myocardial tissues.