Michael Carl1, Yajun Ma2, Graeme M Bydder2, and Jiang Du2
1Global MR Applications & Workflow, General Electric, San Diego, CA, United States, 2University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, United States
Due to the fast decay rate of the transverse
magnetization, diffusion weighting is challenging in short T2 tissues; only
very limited b-values can be achieved before the signal decays to zero. In this
work, we used stimulated echoes to allow spin diffusion while the magnetization
is stored along the longitudinal axis, therefore achieving useful b-values and
allowing examination of short T2 tissues. Several technical challenges have to
be addressed however, such as minimizing the oscillatory signal banding due to
the low diffusion gradient area and reducing T1 contamination in multi-spoke UTE
acquisition. This initial proof-of-principle study shows good quantitative
agreement with clinical EPI diffusion sequences.
