Parallel Line Scan Diffusion Imaging with 2D Acceleration

Renxin Chu¹, Bruno Madore¹, Lawrence P. Panych¹, Mohammed H. Aljallad¹, Stephan E. Maier¹

Line scan diffusion imaging (LSDI) is a one-dimensional Fourier encoding techniques that typically does not involve phase encoding. The absence of phase encoding provides considerable robustness against motion and immunity from artifacts caused by field inhomogeneities and susceptibility. We propose a novel parallel line scan diffusion imaging with 2D acceleration technique by modulating the 90 and 180 slice selection pulses with a cosine waveform to yield double column excitation in 2D simultaneously. Four-fold acceleration can be achieved, at no cost in SNR. Human brain imaging was carried out to test the technique. The proposed accelerated technique preserves the significant advantages of line scan diffusion imaging, more specifically, immunity from susceptibility-induced signal loses and geometric image distortions.