Kimberly Brewer1,2, James Rioux1,2,
Ryan D'Arcy1,3, Chris Bowen1,4, Steven Beyea1,4
1Institute for Biodiagnostics
(Atlantic), National Research Council of Canada, Halifax, Nova Scotia,
Canada; 2Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University,
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; 3Psychology and Radiology, Dalhousie
University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; 4Physics and Atmospheric
Science, Radiology and Biomedical Engineering, Dalhousie University, Halifax,
Nova Scotia, Canada
Over
the past decade, the application of z-shim gradients has been successfully
used to reduce susceptibility field gradient (SFG) effects. Recently, work
has been done to add z-shim to spiral-in, a technique that was designed to
recover signal in susceptibility regions. However, questions remain as to
whether the potential benefits of combining multiple signal recovery
techniques are worth the effort and time to use both techniques. We
demonstrate that although z-shim may be efficient at recovering signal in
sequences prone to SFG effects, its use does not offer significant benefits
at the group level when combined with spiral-in.