Susceptibility and T2/T1 Weighted Contrast Enhancements in Rat Brain Using BSSFP at 9.4T

Joseph S. Gati¹, L Martyn Klassen¹, Robert Bartha¹, Ravi S. Menon¹

Balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) pulse sequences have found widespread use at clinical field strengths, particularly for cardiac applications, because of short acquisition times, high contrast and increased signal to noise characteristics compared to similarly acquired gradient echo (GRE) methods. We have previously demonstrated there to be a greater than 3 times signal to noise advantage, per unit time, using a fully optimized bSSFP sequence over a similarly matched gradient echo acquisitions. The current study demonstrates unique image contrast at high magnetic field strength observed in both high resolution ex vivo and in vivo rat brain images.