Abstract #3941

Robustness of Echo Planar Imaging (EPI) Distortion Correction in Diffusion Tensor Imaging using Forward/reverse Phase Encode Directional B=0 Scans

Wanyong Shin¹, Erik B. Beall¹, Ken Sakaie¹, Mingyi Li¹, Dominic Holland², Anders M. Dale³, Mark Lowe¹

¹Radiology, Imaging Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, United States; ²Neuroscience, University of California, San Diego, CA, United States; ³Radiology, University of California, San Diego, CA, United States

Recently, Holland et al. (Neuroimage, 2010) presented a fast, highly computationally efficient unwarping method using forward and reverse phasing encode (PE) directional EPI scans. In this study, we propose a single diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) scan in which a forward / reverse PE direction scan with b = 0 is implemented as a first acquisition. We test the reproducibility and robustness of the proposed unwarping technique from voxel-wise fractional anisotropy comparison using the proposed DTI sequence.