Abstract #2955

Chen C, Lin F, Ko C, Chuang T, Huang T, Wang F, Kwong K, Chung H

PROPELLER-EPI is a multi-shot technique that could potentially achieve high-resolution diffusion tensor imaging by combining data acquired from rotating blades in the k-space. One crucial step in PROPELLER-EPI image reconstruction is the windowing used for weighing different blades of data. In this work we showed that by lowering the time constants for the exponential window, data obtained far from the echo center, i.e., those inherently exhibiting stronger susceptibility-induced off-resonance distortions, were de-emphasized, thereby reducing the blurring effects. Such resolution benefits were however gained with trade-off in signal-to-noise ratio due to effectively less signal averages.