Ziqi Sun1, Robert Bartha2,3, Hanna A. Park1, Surya Gnyawali1
1Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute,
The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA; 2Imaging Research
Laboratories, Roberts Research Institute, London, Ontario, Canada; 3Departments
of Diagnostic Radiology and Medical Biophysics, University of Western Ontario,
London, Ontario, Canada
Image contrast enhancements were observed both in a multi-compartments phantom and in a stroke mouse model using a customized spin echo (SE) pulse sequence incorporated with selective adiabatic full passage (AFP) pulse trains that alternate frequency sweep (AFS) directions between adjacent pulses. Bloch equation simulation indicated that paired AFP-AFS pulse trains generated more accurate spin refocusing and thus signal intensity (SI) than that of the paired AFP pulses using single frequency sweep (SFS) in the pulse train. The accumulated nonlinear phase dispersion produced by the AFP-AFS pulse train also contributed to the contrast enhancement at longer TE.