On the Phase-Error Propagation in Diffusion-Weighted Steady State Free Precession (DW-SSFP) Imaging

Roland Bammer¹, Rafael O'Halloran¹

Diffusion-weighted SSFP (dwSSFP) offers an efficient diffusion preparation and is a promising approach to high-resolution 3D DW MRI. As a multi-shot technique dwSSFP is affected by shot-to-shot phase inconsistencies as all multi-shot diffusion-weighted sequences are. However, because the steady state signal is composed of the constructive addition of many phase coherence pathways, motion-induced phase accrued during the application of a single diffusion-encoding gradient can propagate to subsequent phase pathways. This represents an additional mechanism of signal loss in dwSSFP. In this work, these errors are classified into two types and strategies for correcting each type are discussed.