3D ECHO-PLANAR IMAGING - APPLICATION TO THE HUMAN HEAD

In this work, the authors present 3D images acquired from the human head using echo planar encoding for two of the three dimensions of k-space. The third dimension of k-space is filled by selecting and phase encoding a slab of spins as in conventional 3D steady state (GRASS based) acquisition regimens. Using this approach, a 128 x 64 x 64 3D data matrix could be obtained in 3.4-4.7 sec using effective TE values of 24 and 34 ms, respectively. High quality 3D images could be acquired once phase ghosts present on 2D images were minimized through proper adjustments of scanner hardware.