Spiral imaging is fast and SNR-efficient, but is relatively sensitive to gradient system imperfections. Unfortunately, these imperfections are generally not known, and can furthermore be expected to vary across different scanner vendor platforms. This complicates multi-site, multi-vendor studies that can benefit from rapid spiral imaging, e.g., those involving fMRI. Here we demonstrate that it is in fact possible to characterize and directly compare spiral gradient performance across two major vendors (GE and Siemens), using the TOPPE and Pulseq frameworks for rapid pulse sequence prototyping. Our observations indicate that B0 eddy currents are substantial on both vendor platforms, and underscore the need for measuring and correcting for B0 effects in spiral imaging.
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