High-Resolution Non-Contrast Enhanced Dark Blood Brain Vessel Imaging Using a Balanced Steady State 3D Projection Reconstruction Sequence

Aiming Lu¹, Keith R. Thulborn¹

Balanced steady-state free precession (SSFP) sequences have been used for non-contrast enhanced vessel imaging due to its high SNR efficiency and bright blood signal. However, as cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) signal is also bright in SSFP images, the application of these techniques to brain has been limited. In this work, we demonstrate that instead of appearing as bright signal, the vessels in the brain have low signal intensity in high-resolution 3T images. Using a dual-half-echo 3D projection reconstruction based SSFP sequence, our results show that non-contrast enhanced high-resolution vessel imaging can be obtained rapidly along with high quality T2-contrast images.