GRASE IMAGING AT 3 TESLA WITH TEMPLATE INTERACTIVE PHASE-ENCODING

A new method for ordering the phase-encoding gradient is proposed, and an application for short effective TE gradient and spin-echo (GRASE) imaging is demonstrated. The proposed method calculates the phase-enco ding order from the signal decay of a template scan (hence ''template interactive phase-encoding'' or TIPE). Computer simulations are used t o compare the point spread functions of different phase-encoding order s giving short effective echo times (kb centric GRASE, centric GRASE, centric TIPE). The conventional centric phase-encoding order is also c onsidered for GRASE. The conventional centric method is sensitive to b oth amplitude and phase modulation of the signal in k-space. The centr ic TIPE method gives the least amplitude modulation artifacts but is v ulnerable to phase artifacts. The TIPE experiment was implemented on a 3 Tesla system. To the best of our knowledge, we present the first in vivo GRASE images at this field strength.