Compensating Temporal B1 Field Inhomogeneities Using Paired Self-Compensated Spin-Lock Pulses

Bogdan G. Mitrea¹, Axel J. Krafft¹, Ruitian Song¹, Ralf B. Loeffler¹, Claudia M. Hillenbrand¹

Spin-lock prepared acquisitions generate a new image contrast that provides molecular-level information from biological systems. Because spin-lock pulses are usually long, amplitude changes in the B1 field can occur (e.g. due to thermal effects of the RF amplifier). Such changes can create imaging artifacts that will introduce errors in the T1_&[rho] quantification. Here, we present an improved approach that uses paired self-compensating spin-lock pulses to reduce artifacts from temporal inhomogeneities of the B1 field while preserving the compensation for B0 inhomogeneities.