Abstract #2682

IDEAL at 7T in Mice Using Asymmetric Spin Echo and Gradient Echo Acquisitions

David H. Johnson¹, Sreenath P. Narayan¹, David L. Wilson^1,2, Chris A. Flask^1,2

¹Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA; ²Radiology, University Hospitals of Cleveland, Cleveland, OH, USA

An IDEAL acquisition based on an asymmetric spin echo acquisition (aSE) was developed for imaging mice on a 7T small animal MRI scanner. A short delay (79us - 790us) was inserted between the refocusing pulse and the readout gradient in a standard spin echo acquisition to introduce fat-water phase shift appropriate for IDEAL estimation of separate fat and water images. The aSE-IDEAL technique generated images with dramatically reduced susceptibility artifacts and improved overall image SNR in comparison to conventional spoiled gradient echo (i.e., FLASH) IDEAL images.