An Investigation of Fundamental Pitfall in SSGR

Axel Hartwig¹, Stefan Skare¹

SSGR is a time efficient and robust fat suppression technique that achieves fat suppression by displacing fat during slice-selection. Fat suppression is achieved by displacing excitation and refocusing pulses in opposite directions. This work shows how, depending on slice-selection direction, displaced excitations and refocusing pulses may interact and form an unwanted echo during acquisition of latter slices. The birth of the echo is investigated and two methods to eliminate it are discussed.