Adiabatic Magnetization Preparation Pulse for T2-Contrast at 7 Tesla

Priti Balchandani¹, Daniel Spielman¹

T₂-weighted sequences such as Fast Spin Echo are highly susceptible to the B₁-inhomogeneity and are SAR-intensive at 7T. We present an alternative method to obtain T₂-contrast at 7T which utilizes an adiabatic magnetization preparation (AMP) pulse. The AMP pulse is a 0 BIR-4 pulse with delays inserted between segments to introduce T₂-decay. Phantom and in vivo experiments show that the AMP pulse provides more uniform SNR and T₂-contrast over the excited slice. The AMP pulse is suitable for use in a volumetric fast gradient echo sequence.