T2-weighted fMRI methods including Spin-Echo (SE) and balanced SSFP (bSSFP), became of particular interest to reach superior functional specificity in high field application. However, both techniques suffer from a number of practical limitations. SE fMRI may be SAR limited at high fields. On the other hand, bSSFP suffers from dark bands. To eliminate dark bands in bSSFP, non-balanced-SSFP (nbSSFP) fMRI was previously suggested. Here, we developed a robust version of nbSSFP by using a single SSFP-echo sequence to decrease motion effects. The performance of the suggested sequence is evaluated and the results obtained are compared with bSSFP and SE-EPI fMRI.
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