A strategy for incrementing the position of the k-space trajectory of an echo planar imaging (EPI) pulse sequence.
Echo planar imaging (EPI) uses a constant gradient amplitude in one direction. This, combined with an oscillating gradient system in the frequency encoding direction, produces a zigzag trajectory in k-space. In the blipped phase encoding variant of EPI, the k-space position in the phase encoded direction is incremented by gradient 'blips' of the appropriate area. These, when timed to occur during the reversals of the read-out gradient, produce a rectilinear path in k-space.
The artifacts in an EPI image can arise from both hardware and sample imperfections. These are most easily understandable from examination of the k-space trajectory involved, which is either a zigzag form (when using a constant phase encoding gradient) or a rastered zigzag (when the phase encoding is performed with small gradients at the end of each scan line, so-called 'blipped' EPI).

Quick Overview
Please note that there are different common names for this artifact.

During frequency encoding, fat protons precess slower than water protons in the same slice because of their magnetic shielding. Through the difference in resonance frequency between water and fat, protons at the same location are misregistrated (dislocated) by the Fourier transformation, when converting MRI signals from frequency to spatial domain. This chemical shift misregistration cause accentuation of any fat-water interfaces along the frequency axis and may be mistaken for pathology. Where fat and water are in the same location, this artifact can be seen as a bright or dark band at the edge of the anatomy.
Protons in fat and water molecules are separated by a chemical shift of about 3.5 ppm. The actual shift in Hertz (Hz) depends on the magnetic field strength of the magnet being used. Higher field strength increases the misregistration, while in contrast a higher gradient strength has a positive effect. For a 0.3 T system operating at 12.8 MHz the shift will be 44.8 Hz compared with a 223.6 Hz shift for a 1.5 T system operating at 63.9 MHz.

For artifact reduction helps a smaller water fat shift (higher bandwidth), a higher matrix, an in phase TE or a spin echo technique. Since the misregistration offset is present in the read out axis the patient may be rescanned with this axis parallel to the fat-water interface. Steeper gradient may be employed to reduce the chemical shift offset in mm. Another strategy is to employ specialized pulse sequences such as fat saturation or inversion recovery imaging. Fat suppression techniques eliminate chemical shift artifacts caused by the lack of fat signal.

See also Black Boundary Artifact and Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy.

Image artifact of apparent spatial offset of regions with different chemical shifts along the direction of the frequency encoding gradient; a similar effect may be found in the slice selection direction.

See Chemical Shift Artifact.

(DESS) This sequence was originally known as FADE. It combines both the gradient echoes acquired in FISP and PSIF sequences in separate acquisition periods during a single interpulse interval. Phase encoding gradients are balanced to maintain the transverse steady state signals. The frequency encoding gradient is left on for the period of both the echoes, and is incompletely balanced to avoid dark banding artifacts otherwise associated with long TR fully balanced steady state sequences. The contrast of DESS is quite unique, true T2 or T1 contrast weighting is not possible. There is a strong fluid signal but fat is bright and other soft tissues appear similar to the short TR FISP image.
Used for, e.g. the joints, cartilage and the prostate.

See Steady State Free Precession and Dual Echo Sequence.

(EPI) Echo planar imaging is one of the early magnetic resonance imaging sequences (also known as Intascan), used in applications like diffusion, perfusion, and functional magnetic resonance imaging. Other sequences acquire one k-space line at each phase encoding step. When the echo planar imaging acquisition strategy is used, the complete image is formed from a single data sample (all k-space lines are measured in one repetition time) of a gradient echo or spin echo sequence (see single shot technique) with an acquisition time of about 20 to 100 ms. The pulse sequence timing diagram illustrates an echo planar imaging sequence from spin echo type with eight echo train pulses. (See also Pulse Sequence Timing Diagram, for a description of the components.)
In case of a gradient echo based EPI sequence the initial part is very similar to a standard gradient echo sequence. By periodically fast reversing the readout or frequency encoding gradient, a train of echoes is generated.
EPI requires higher performance from the MRI scanner like much larger gradient amplitudes. The scan time is dependent on the spatial resolution required, the strength of the applied gradient fields and the time the machine needs to ramp the gradients.
In EPI, there is water fat shift in the phase encoding direction due to phase accumulations. To minimize water fat shift (WFS) in the phase direction fat suppression and a wide bandwidth (BW) are selected. On a typical EPI sequence, there is virtually no time at all for the flat top of the gradient waveform. The problem is solved by "ramp sampling" through most of the rise and fall time to improve image resolution.
The benefits of the fast imaging time are not without cost. EPI is relatively demanding on the scanner hardware, in particular on gradient strengths, gradient switching times, and receiver bandwidth. In addition, EPI is extremely sensitive to image artifacts and distortions.