Tomasz Dawid Lindel1, 2, Andre Kuehne1, 2, Patrick Waxmann1, 2, Frank Seifert1, 2, Thoralf Niendorf2, Bernd Ittermann1, 2
1Medical Metrology, Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Abbestr. 2-12, 10587 Berlin, Germany; 2Max Delbrck Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC), Berlin Ultra-High Field Facility (BUFF), Berlin, Germany
Spatially selective excitation (SSE) using multiple transmit channels offers the possibility of zoomed imaging, i.e., acquiring images of increased resolution within a reduced field of view and thus without scan time penalty. Hitherto, limited background suppression and anatomical contrast prevented widespread use of SSE in neuroimaging. With an improved SSE protocol on a 7T scanner with eight transmit channels we were able to mitigate some of these limitations. Arbitrary patterns were excited in the brain of a healthy volunteer and images with high T1 contrast were acquired. The background suppression was sufficient to allow zoomed imaging without noticeable aliasing.