Cheng Ouyang1, Luis Hernandez2, Brad P. Sutton1,3
1Bioengineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA; 2FMRI Laboratory, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA; 3Beckman Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA
Concatenation of RF pulses holds great potential for allowing tag and saturation pulses to occur near imaging slices in arterial spin labeling scans or other blood flow imaging methods. However, concatenated RF pulses suffer from reduction of tag efficiency and improper control images when magnetic field inhomogeneity is present. In this abstract, we present a framework for correcting field inhomogeneity effects on the net flip angle of concatenated RF pulses. This framework will allow for future developments of blood flow imaging methods with saturation planes very close to or coincident with the imaging slices.