A New Encoding Scheme for Single-Shot 3D GRASE to Double Slice Coverage

Huan Tan¹, W. Scott Hoge², Robert A. Kraft¹

Single-shot 3D GRASE is a popular acquisition technique for ASL imaging. The slice coverage is limited by T2 relaxation. Increasing the number of slices acquired aggravates through-plane blurring due to the longer acquisition window. A new 3D GRASE encoding scheme is developed which performs two kz encodes for each spin echo that doubles slice coverage without compromising image quality. The new encoding scheme is shown to achieve similar image quality as a standard 2-shot 3D GRASE for in-vivo ASL imaging.