Abstract #2816

Impact of Autocalibration Method on Accelerated Echo-Planar Imaging of the Cervical Spinal Cord at 7 T

Alan C Seifert^1,2,3 and Junqian Xu^1,2,3,4

¹Translational and Molecular Imaging Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, United States, ²Department of Radiology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, United States, ³Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, United States, ⁴Department of Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, United States

Respiration-induced B₀ fluctuations are significantly greater in the cervical spinal cord than in the brain at 7T, increasing k-space phase inconsistencies and necessitating a separate evaluation of autocalibration scan (ACS) methods for accelerated EPI. We tested four ACS methods (single-shot EPI, segmented EPI, FLEET, and GRE) under three physiological conditions (end-expiration breath-hold, free-breathing, and intentional swallowing). GRE and single-shot EPI ACS methods, which are robust to respiration-induced phase errors between k-space segments, produce images with fewer and less severe artifacts than either FLEET or conventionally segmented EPI ACS methods for accelerated EPI of the cervical spinal cord at 7T.

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