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Abstract #1627

Local B0 temporal instability detected using a modified Multi-Echo GRE-EPI sequence with Flipped-Blips (MEPI-FB): application to fMRI with visual presentation of faces

Catarina Rua1,2, Mark R. Symms3, Brice Fernandez4, Ana Beatriz Solana5, Mauro Costagli2, Alberto Del Guerra1, and Michela Tosetti2,6

1Department of Physics, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy, 2Imago7 Research Center, Pisa, Italy, 3GE Healthcare, Pisa, Italy, 4GE Healthcare, Orsay, France, 5GE Global Research, Munich, Germany, 6IRCCS Stella Maris, Pisa, Italy

Field-mapping techniques using a reference scan allow accurate distortion correction of EPI data. However, due to the strong B0 dependency with head motion and other physiological artefacts in fMRI acquisitions, the reference field-map does not adequately correct for dynamic non-linear changes in image intensity. In this work we show the feasibility of a method to map temporal variations of the B0-field at 7 Tesla, using a high-resolution Multi-echo EPI sequence, acquiring three echo-modules with reverse phase-encoding direction on the second echo. The robustness of the method was tested during an fMRI acquisition with visual presentation of faces.

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