Jongho Lee1,2, Masaki Fukunaga1,3,
Jeff H. Duyn1
1Advanced MRI
section/LFMI/NINDS, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, United
States; 2Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania ,
Philadelphia, PA, United States; 3Biofunctional Imaging, WPI
Immunology Frontier Research Center, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan
Resonance frequency shifts as measured from gradient-echo phase images provide unique detail of the human brain, in particular at high field. Here we demonstrate a new method to improve contrast-to-noise ration (CNR) of phase images using balanced SSFP. GRE and bSSFP sequences were individually optimized for maximum phase CNR and applied to measure contrast between gray and white matter in normal human brain. The results shows that, in limited brain regions, bSSFP provides a 2.85 times increased CNR efficiency at 3 T and a 1.71 times increased CNR efficiency at 7 T.