A combined acquisition of distortion-free diffusion-weighted images and tissue conductivity maps is explored using a fully balanced double echo steady state (DESS) sequence. Banding artifacts are avoided using sufficiently high gradient moments of the diffusion gradient, such that the banding is contained within single voxels. The stability of the B1 transceive phase measurement by the balanced DESS sequence allows the derivation of quantitative tissue conductivity based second derivative using standard EPT (electrical properties tomography) methods. Feasibility of simultaneous DWI and EPT is shown on a 3T MRI system in phantom and volunteer experiments (head).
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