We show that partial dephasing mitigates artifacts from through-plane flow near dark bands in balanced SSFP. A 30o-60o range in the phase accrual during a TR is created over the voxel by slightly unbalancing the slice-select rephaser. The effects of partial dephasing on the spectral profiles for various flow rates were simulated, and the simulations were validated in a flow phantom. By decreasing the strength and non-linearity of the signal’s dependence on through-plane flow rate, partial dephasing mitigates the transient artifacts caused by pulsatile flow. In volunteer studies, it noticeably decreased artifacts in all of the phase-cycled cardiac cine datasets acquired.
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