Robin Martin Heidemann1, Robert Trampel1, Dimo Ivanov1, Fabrizio Fasano2,3, Josef Pfeuffer4, Robert Turner1
1Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany; 2Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome, Italy; 3Siemens Medical Solutions, Milano, Italy; 4Siemens Medical Solutions, Charlestown, MA, USA
The increased SNR of ultra-high field MR scanners can be utilized to push the resolution of fMRI acquisitions. Besides the SNR, unwanted effects such as geometric distortions and blurring also scale with field strength. The use of parallel imaging can reduce those effects significantly. However, due to imperfections in the reconstruction, parallel imaging can be affected by residual aliasing artifacts. A combination of a zoomed approach and parallel imaging enables single-shot EPI acquisitions with an isotropic resolution of (0.7mm) 3. It is shown that the activation of the visual motion sensitive area V5 does not lead to signal change in an adjacent large vein.