Abstract #0068

Murdoch J, Edden R, Barker P

Multi-slice MR Spectroscopic Imaging (MRSI) of the human brain at 3T offers reduced scan time and increased signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) compared to conventional MRSI techniques at 1.5T. However, the chemical shift artifact is exacerbated at the higher field strength, so that images of the different metabolites acquired with traditional sinc-gauss slice-selective refocusing pulses represent significantly different slices. In this abstract, a high bandwidth frequency-modulated slice selective pulse is compared to sinc-gauss refocusing pulses, demonstrating a significant improvement in the spatial localization of the images and a 15% improvement in SNR.