Multiband echo planar imaging (EPI) offers increased temporospatial resolution and statistical power for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) but the higher spatial resolution comes at the cost of higher susceptibility-related spatial distortions. In diffusion MRI (dMRI), studies have shown that distortion correction is better when using blip-reversed EPI data (known under the term blip-up/down images) as compared to the standard fieldmap approach. This has motivated fMRI studies to acquire their data with blip-up/down directions and to use these to reduce susceptibility distortion. Here, we qualitatively illustrate why this can lead to erroneous results and quantify this error across 10 subjects.
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