Abstract #3466

Lee J, Nishimura D, Saritas E, Cunningham C

Diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) of the spinal cord is important in the diagnoses and better understanding of damage to the long fiber tracts. Single-shot diffusion-weighted echo-planar imaging (ss-DWEPI) provides excellent robustness against motion-induced phase perturbations, but does not provide sufficient quality images. In this work, we achieve higher resolution spin-echo ss-DWEPI images, without the need for a longer readout, by taking advantage of the highly rectangular geometry of the spine. By using a 2D echo-planar RF excitation pulse and a 1800 refocusing pulse, we limit the FOV in the phase-encode direction and suppress the signal from fat simultaneously.