Hahnsung Kim1, Dong-Hyun Kim1, Jaeseok Park2
1Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea, Republic of; 2Brain and Cognitive Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, Korea, Republic of
Single-slab 3D turbo/fast spin echo imaging with short non-selective pulses and variable flip angles in the refocusing pulse train has been recently introduced to increase echo train length and thus enhance imaging efficiency. It has been efforts to further prolong echo train length for high-resolution 3D brain imaging. However, this approach is highly energy-intensive and drops out SNR and CNR within permissible ranges of SAR. To enhance imaging efficiency while retaining SAR limit at high field, in this work we develop highly efficient single-slab 3D GRASE imaging, incorporating: 1) multiple echo planar imaging readouts into a framework of turbo/fast SE imaging and thereby reducing the number of refocusing pulses and 2) parallel imaging assisted phase-independent image reconstruction to remove phase discontinuity related artifacts.