Three Dimensional Imaging with Independent Slab Excitation & Encoding

Amir Eissa¹, Alan H. Wilman¹

A new class of 3D Cartesian MRI is introduced whereby the voxel encoding orientation is independent of the imaging slab orientation. The excitation region can be chosen for the optimal region of interest, while the encoding direction can be arbitrarily oriented for ideal voxel alignment. The resulting aliased image can be easily unwrapped to produce standard image depiction. The method is particularly useful with anisotropic voxels, enabling voxel alignment to produce minimal blurring of oriented fine structures, while maintaining ideal volume placement. For phase susceptibility methods, the method enables oblique imaging with voxel orientation maintained along the main field direction.