• Albert Kir and Alan McMillan.
• Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA.
• J Magn Reson Imaging. 2012 Sep 1; 36 (3): 748-55.

PurposeTo implement a method using an extended phase graph (EPG)-based simulation to optimize inversion-prepared gradient echo sequences with respect to signal and contrast within the shortest acquisition time.Materials And MethodsA critical issue in rapid gradient-echo imaging is the effect of residual transverse magnetization between consecutive data acquisition windows. Various spoiling schemes have been proposed to mitigate this problem, and while spoiling is often considered to be perfect, imaging can be more truthfully described using the EPG. An EPG-based simulation is used to analyze and predict the image signal and contrast to serve as a basis for sequence optimization.ResultsFourteen biological phantom experiments and five brain imaging experiments on each of five healthy volunteers was performed to validate and verify the accuracy of the EPG-based simulation. In addition, two experiments on an in-cranial cadaver brain were performed to show the ability of the proposed method for improving overall image quality.ConclusionFrom the experiment results, it is demonstrated that optimization of 3D magnetization-prepared rapid gradient-echo imaging sequences can be performed with an EPG-based simulation to manipulate the sequence parameters for generating images with highly specific signal and contrast characteristics for quantitative T1-weighted human brain imaging.Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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