Hai Zheng1, Tiejun
Zhao2, Yongxian Qian3, Tamer Ibrahim1,3,
Fernando Boada1,3
1Bioengineering,
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA; 2Siemens Medical
Solutions, Pittsburgh, PA, USA; 3Radiology, University of
Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
T2*-weighted functional MRI images at ultra high field (UHF, >3T) is severely affected by through-plane signal loss and B1 inhomogeneity in areas near air/tissue interfaces in the brain. In this study, we demonstrate a parallel transmission technique to simultaneously mitigate signal loss and B1 inhomogenetiy based on the concatenation of multi-slices main magnetic field and B1+ maps during RF pulse design. Our results demonstrate that the approach is a practical means for the reduction of signal loss during in vivo T2*-weighted functional MRI at 7T.