Abstract #1431

Implementation of GOIA-Wurst Pulse in a SPECIAL Localization Sequence at 7T

Isabell Kristin Steinseifer¹, Ralf Mekle², Rolf Gruetter³, Tom W. J. Scheenen¹, Arend Heerschap¹

¹Radiology, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, Netherlands; ²Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Berlin, Germany; ³LIFMET, Ecole Politechnique Federale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

In ¹H MRS the SPECIAL technique combines the advantages of ultra-short TE with full sensitivity obtained by SE based sequences. We present an adiabatic SPECIAL pulse sequence at 7T with two GOIA-W(16,4) pulses for refocusing. The GOIA-W(16,4) pulses provide a large bandwidth of 20 kHz and therefore make SPECIAL less sensitive to inhomogeneities and chemical-shift artefacts. We tested the SPECIAL-GOIA combination with a phantom and in vivo brain measurements. Even though TE is elongated by the implemented GOIA-W(16,4) pulses, it is still short enough to resolve coupled spin systems. We measured the same metabolites as with the original SPECIAL technique.