This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. Primary support for the subproject and the subproject's principal investigator may have been provided by other sources, including other NIH sources. The Total Cost listed for the subproject likely represents the estimated amount of Center infrastructure utilized by the subproject, not direct funding provided by the NCRR grant to the subproject or subproject staff. Introduction: Imaging with a reduced field of view (rFOV) reduces distortion in EPI by acquiring fewer phase-encode lines. However, aliasing occurs when regions with signal are outside the phase field of view. ZOOM-EPI [1,2] is a method used to address this problem in which the refocusing slices are tilted relative to the first excitation (the 90 degree pulse). Here we use ZOOM-EPI with the refocusing pulses titled by 90 degrees to assure a sharp profile of the selected band. The approach is compared to a full FOV method in diffusion-tensor imaging DTI of the thoracic spine in one healthy volunteer. Methods: MRI: Single-shot twice-refocused DTI of the thoracic spine was performed on a healthy volunteer using a 1.5T MRI scanner with a 4-channel spine coil. Three un-weighted (b=0 s/mm2) images and 60 diffusion-weighted directions (b = 500 s/mm2) were collected on 7 slices with a 4 mm slice thickness. Both the rFOV method and a conventional full FOV method were performed in a scan time of 3:12 min. To read about other projects ongoing at the Lucas Center, please visit http://rsl.stanford.edu/ (Lucas Annual Report and ISMRM 2011 Abstracts)
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