PERFUSION IMAGING USING FOCI RF PULSES

Pulsed arterial spin-tagging techniques for perfusion measurements (e. g., echo planar MR imaging and signal targeting with alternating radio frequency (EPISTAR), flow-sensitive alternating inversion recovery (FA IR), quantitative imaging of perfusion using a single subtraction (QUI PPS), uninverted FAIR (UNFAIR)) generally use hyperbolic secant (HS) p ulses for spin inversion, The performance of these techniques depends on the inversion efficiency, as well as the sharpness of the slice pro files. Frequency offset corrected inversion (FOCI) pulses, a recently proposed HS variant, can provide slice profiles with edges that can be up to 10 times sharper than those obtained with conventional HS pulse s, In this communication, the implementation and application of the C- shape FOCI pulse for perfusion imaging in rat brain with the FAIR tech nique is summarized. Despite providing a more rectangular slice profil e than a conventional HS pulse, it is demonstrated both theoretically and experimentally that the FAIR perfusion signal is not increased by using a FOCI tagging pulse, However, the use of a FOCI inversion pulse is shown to significantly minimize static signal subtraction errors t hat are common with conventional HS pulses. Finally, the suitability o f the pulse for perfusion studies is demonstrated, in vivo, on rat bra in.