Comparison of Short Diffusion Preparations for 3D Black Blood Imaging.

Niranjan Balu¹, Jinnan Wang², Chun Yuan¹

Fast isotropic 3D black-blood imaging using diffusion prepared rapid gradient echo imaging can provide improved SNR with short diffusion preparations to reduce T2 related signal loss. Since good blood-suppression in this technique can be maintained by low turbo factors in conjunction with moderate gradient first moments, advantages of using a twice refocused diffusion preparation is not clear compared to other short preparations such as reverse bipolar diffusion gradients. We demonstrate the advantage of twice refocused preparation for medium and low first gradient moment applications of diffusion prepared 3D gradient echo black blood imaging.