Abstract #4450

Accurate and Efficient Mapping of Flip Angle and T1 Using Simultaneous Actual Flip Angle - Variable Flip Angle Imaging (AFI-T1)

Samuel A. Hurley¹, Alexey A. Samsonov²

¹Medical Physics, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Madison, WI, USA; ²Radiology, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Madison, WI, USA

The knowledge of flip angle is essential for many quantitative MRI techniques such as variable flip angle (VFA) T1 mapping. We propose a new approach, which circumvents the shortcomings of Actual Flip angle Imaging (AFI) such as T1 dependence of flip angle values for short T1/long TR regimes, and simultaneously yields T1 maps with higher precision in less imaging time. The new method (AFI-T1) exploits a synergy between AFI and VFA T1 methods arising from the similarity of the steady state spoiled gradient echo (SPGR) based pulse sequences.