• Jun-Young Chung, Hyo Woon Yoon, Young-Bo Kim, Hyun Wook Park, and Zang-Hee Cho.
• Neuroscience Research Institute, Gachon University of Medicine and Science, Incheon, Republic of Korea.
• J Magn Reson Imaging. 2009 Jan 1; 29 (1): 221-8.

PurposeTo implement a method using a tailored radiofrequency (TRF) pulse with a quadratic phase profile to recover susceptibility-induced signal losses in gradient-recalled echo-planar images (EPI).Materials And MethodsA functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment for compensation of susceptibility artifacts, known as the TRF pulse EPI sequence (TRF-EPI), was used. TRF pulse compensates the susceptibility effect with a reduced signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) to one-half when the maximum phase distribution is 2pi. We demonstrate theoretically that the maximum phase distribution can also be reduced to pi rather than 2pi, improving the SNR accordingly. An analysis was conducted comparing this newly proposed strategy using a standard RF excitation with a linear phase distribution and a quadratic TRF excitation with a pi phase distribution.ResultsThorough experimental comparisons were also made between the TRF quadratic excitation with a pi phase profile and conventional EPI with a standard excitation in human subjects during ventral brain activation.ConclusionWith reduced maximum phase distribution in the TRF pulse, signals in the susceptibility-affected areas, such as the orbitofrontal and inferior temporal cortex, were increased, suggesting that the technique could be a useful adjunct to fMRI.

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