Magnetic resonance imaging with zero echo time and slice selection

• Main Authors: BORREGUERO MORATA, José, BENLLOCH BAVIERA, Jose María, GALVE CONDE, Fernando, ALONSO OTAMENDI, Joseba, ALGARÍN GUISADO, José Miguel
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 15.12.2022
• Subjects: MEASURING; MEASURING ELECTRIC VARIABLES; MEASURING MAGNETIC VARIABLES; PHYSICS; TESTING

The invention provides a novel radio frequency sequence, suitable for performing Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of 2-dimensional (2D) slices (rather than 3- dimensional volumes) of samples exhibiting short magnetization coherence times (i.e. hard tissues). The SS-ZTE pulse sequence comprises the following steps: a) magnetizing all spins in the sample from a longitudinal direction to the transverse plane; b) exciting the 2D slice of interest, which comprises the selective locking of said 2D sample slice magnetization while spoiling the magnetization in the rest of sample volume; c) making the magnetization of the selected 2D slice impervious to reconfigurations of the magnetic field gradients from slice selection to encoding and readout; d) reading out of the free induction decay signal of the sample; e) repeating steps (a-d) with different readout directions, so as to gather a corresponding number of radial spokes of the plane defined by the 2D sample slice.