SINGLE-SHOT DIFFUSION MRI OF HUMAN BRAIN ON A CONVENTIONAL CLINICAL INSTRUMENT

A single-shot diffusion MRI technique on a standard clinical 1.5T scan ner is presented. The method incorporates the following elements: (a) an inversion RF pulse followed by a delay of 1.3 s to null cerebral sp inal fluid (CSF) signal, (b) a stimulated echo sequence (TE = 56 ms, T M = 100 ms) to obtain strong diffusion weighting, (c) a single-shot gr adient- and spin-echo (GRASE) sequence for imaging with a modified k-s pace trajectory and Carr-Purcell Meiboom-Gill (CPMG)-phase cycle. The trace of the diffusion coefficient obtained with this approach is in g ood agreement with values reported for animal brain, and for recent hu man studies. It is demonstrated that single-shot diffusion imaging of human brain is feasible on an unmodified standard instrument without h igh-gradient slew rate or extreme field homogeneity.