Combining Balanced Steady State Free Precession with Parallel Functional Imaging

Michael H. Chappell¹, Anders Kristoffersen², Pl E. Goa², Asta Hberg¹

Balanced steady state free precession (bSSFP)is a new method of acquiring functional data. Its advantages over conventional BOLD imaging are its high SNR, and its freedom from the signal dropout and distortion artifacts which can affect BOLD in regions of high susceptibility gradient. Previous research has shown bSSFP to be effective for visual imaging. This study takes that a step further to investigate its performance when combined with parallel imaging. We found evidence of increased sensitivity when SENSE was used. This suggests it could be worthwhile to combine the advantages of bSSFP with the advantages of parallel imaging.