Slice-Direction SENSE: A Sensitive Acquisition Method for Detecting Neuronal Current MRI Signal Induced by Epilepsy

Qingfei Luo¹, Gary H. Glover¹

MRI can potentially be used to detect the neuronal currents induced by epilepsy. However, to capture the brief epiletiform spikes, the MR images need to be acquired with a high temporal resolution (~ tens of ms). In this study, we propose to achieve the high temporal resolution by using the Slice-direction SENSE (Sl-SENSE) acquisition method, which simultaneously excites and acquires multiple image slices. Through a simulation experiment, we demonstrated that Sl-SENSE provides superior detection sensitivity than the conventional pulse sequences, and it may become a promising acquisition method for detecting the neuronal current MRI signal induced by epilepsy.