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Abstract #4434

Large-FOV Tractography of the Brain and Spinal Cord with Reduced Scan Time: A Study using Diffusion-Weighted, Readout-Segmented EPI and Simultaneous Multi-Slice Acceleration

Wei Liu 1 , Himanshu Bhat 2 , Julien Cohen-Adad 3 , Kawin Setsompop 4 , Dingxin Wang 5 , Thomas Beck 6 , Stephen F. Cauley 4 , Kun Zhou 1 , and David A. Porter 7

1 Siemens Shenzhen Magnetic Resonance Ltd., Shenzhen, Guangdong, China, 2 Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc., Charlestown, MA, United States, 3 Department of Electrical Engineering, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada, 4 A.A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Dept. of Radiology, MGH, Charlestown, MA, United States, 5 Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc., Minneapolis, MN, United States, 6 MR Application Development, Siemens Healthcare, Erlangen, Germany, 7 Fraunhofer MEVIS, Institute for Medical Image Computing, Bremen, Germany

Readout-segmented EPI (rs-EPI) is an established clinical technique for acquiring DW images with reduced distortion and T2*-related blurring, which is therefore particularly well-suited to acquire high-quality DW data from the whole brain and cervical spine. However, the acquisition time increases with the number of readout segments. In this study, we demonstrate how the blipped-CAIPIRINHA simultaneous multi-slice technique can be used with rs-EPI to provide a unique method for performing rapid tractography studies of the brain and spinal cord with low distortion and a large anatomical coverage, whilst preserving data quality for tractography studies.

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