ACQUISITION OF SPIN-ECHO AND STIMULATED ECHO BY A SINGLE SEQUENCE - APPLICATION TO MRI OF DIFFUSION

A new method is described to measure the restricted diffusion coeffici ent with magnetic resonance imaging. The two images necessary to calcu late the diffusion image are obtained with a simultaneous acquisition of a spin-echo and a stimulated echo, and so, in half the time needed by usual spin-echo or stimulated echo method. A different diffusion co ntrast is created on each echo. A map of an estimate of the diffusion coefficient and an estimation of T, value are obtained with only one e xperiment. The accuracy of the method has been evaluated on phantom an d results are in agreement with values found in previous papers and wi th measurements performed with a usual spin-echo method. Furthermore, in vivo measurements have shown that this method can be used without e lettrocardiogram triggering.