Steven T. Whitaker1, Meredith Taylor1, Haonan Wang1, and Neal K. Bangerter1
Balanced
steady-state free precession (bSSFP) provides high signal in short scan times. A
new method for combining four or more phase-cycled bSSFP acquisitions was
recently proposed that uses an elliptical signal model (ESM)
of the bSSFP signal.
In
this study, we compare the SNR performance and effectiveness at reducing banding artifact of
the ESM, complex sum, and sum-of-squares techniques across a range of T1 and T2 values, flip
angles, and base SNR levels.
Although
ESM produces near perfect band removal in high SNR situations, it breaks down
for certain tissues and in low SNR situations.
