Abstract #3704

A Whole Brain High Temporal and Spatial Resolution SE Simultaneous Multislice Sequence for Task fMRI at 7T

Rasim Boyacioglu¹, Jennifer Bersch¹, Nils Mller¹, Peter J. Koopmans¹,², Markus Barth¹,³, David Norris¹,²

¹Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands; ²Erwin L. Hahn Institute for Magnetic Resonance Imaging, University Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany; ³Erwin L. Hahn Institute for Magnetic Resonance Imaging,, University Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany

Simultaneous multi-slice (SMS) imaging enables 2D sequences to be accelerated in the slice direction. The power deposition however remains as the limiting factor for SE based SMS sequences. By using standard SMS excitation pulses and Power Independent Number of Slices (PINS) pulses for refocusing, we show that a whole brain high spatial (1.5 mm isotropic) resolution SE SMS acquisition can be achieved with a considerably short TR (1.97s) at 7T. We compare the SE SMS protocol with a matched GE SMS sequence in terms of tSNR and sensitivity with task (Stroop) fMRI.