The Origins of Bright Blood MPRAGE at 7 Tesla and a Simultaneous Method for T1 Imaging and Non-Contrast MRA

John W. Grinstead¹, William Rooney², Gerhard Laub

MPRAGE is a widely used pulse sequence for T1-weighted anatomical imaging. It has been reported that blood appears extremely bright in MPRAGE at 7 Tesla, and provides excellent vascular information. However, the mechanism for this has not been completely explained. The present work explains the primary source of bright blood MPRAGE at 7 Tesla, and based on this understanding proposes a new technique providing simultaneous high-resolution T1 MPRAGE imaging and non-contrast angiography with excellent background suppression.