A multi-inversion multi-echo spin and gradient echo echo planar imaging sequence with low image distortion for rapid quantitative parameter mapping and synthetic image contrasts

Abstract

Purpose: Brain imaging exams typically take 10-20 min and involve multiple sequential acquisitions. A low-distortion whole-brain echo planar imaging (EPI)-based approach was developed to efficiently encode multiple contrasts in one acquisition, allowing for calculation of quantitative parameter maps and synthetic contrast-weighted images. Methods: Inversion prepared spin- and gradient-echo EPI was developed with slice-order shuffling across measurements for efficient acquisition with T1, T2, and (Formula presented.) weighting. A dictionary-matching approach was used to fit the images to quantitative parameter maps, which in turn were used to create synthetic weighted images with typical clinical contrasts. Dynamic slice-optimized multi-coil shimming with a B0 shim array was used to reduce B0 inhomogeneity and, therefore, image distortion by >50%. Multi-shot EPI was also implemented to minimize distortion and blurring while enabling high in-plane resolution. A low-rank reconstruction approach was used to mitigate errors from shot-to-shot phase variation. Results: The slice-optimized shimming approach was combined with in-plane parallel-imaging acceleration of 4× to enable single-shot EPI with more than eight-fold distortion reduction. The proposed sequence efficiently obtained 40 contrasts across the whole-brain in just over 1 min at 1.2 × 1.2 × 3 mm resolution. The multi-shot variant of the sequence achieved higher in-plane resolution of 1 × 1 × 4 mm with good image quality in 4 min. Derived quantitative maps showed comparable values to conventional mapping methods. Conclusion: The approach allows fast whole-brain imaging with quantitative parameter maps and synthetic weighted contrasts. The slice-optimized multi-coil shimming and multi-shot reconstruction approaches result in minimal EPI distortion, giving the sequence the potential to be used in rapid screening applications.