Non-balanced SSFP has been recently suggested as a viable approach for T2-weighted SSFP fMRI. Compared to bSSFP, it entirely eliminates the problematic banding artifacts. However, its sensitivity has not yet been systematically investigated. In this study, fixed effects group analysis was performed on balanced and non-balanced SSFP data from seven healthy subjects in 7 T. We found that, group activation maps are generally similar, besides, mean z-values for the two methods are not significantly different. The obtained results suggest that the newly developed nbSSFP method is a viable approach to substitute bSSFP in high resolution fMRI studies.
This abstract and the presentation materials are available to members only; a login is required.