Crusher Gradient Reversal to Eliminate Stimulated Echo Artifacts in Dual Spin Echo Diffusion MRI

Gaohong Wu¹, Sangwoo Lee¹, Xiaoli Zhao¹, Zhu Li¹

A crusher gradient reversal method is proposed to overcome the stimulated echo artifacts in dual spin echo diffusion MRI. The polarity of crusher gradients before and after the two refocusing pulses is reversed according to the polarity of diffusion gradients. The reversal allows the crusher gradients and diffusion gradients to be added up, so that there are always enough crushers to kill the stimulated echo signal. The removal of stimulated echo artifacts is not specific to certain b-values, and does not have impact on sequence performance.