Hai Zheng1, Lei Sheu2, 3, Tiejun Zhao4, Yongxian Qian5, Tamer Ibrahim1, 5, Howard Aizenstein1, 2, Fernando Boada, 15
1Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States; 2Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States; 3Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States; 4Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Pittsburgh, PA, United States; 5Radiology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States
T2* weighted BOLD fMRI in ultra high field (UHF) is hampered by susceptibility-induced signal loss between air cavities and brain tissues. In this article, we proposed a new RF pulse design strategy, dubbed as PTX 3DTRF, by combing 3DTRF method and PTX technique to simultaneously and precisely recover multi-slice signal loss and improve BOLD signal. Significant improvement in UHF human study can be observed when the proposed methods are applied. Robustness and reproducibility are proved by scanning multiple subjects (N=5) and multiple times on one subject (two of the five subjects were scanned twice, respectively).