PURR-TURBO: a novel pulse sequence for longitudinal relaxographic imaging

A novel pulse sequence based on a segmented phase-encoding scheme for measuring the longitudinal relaxation time (T(1)) value of an NMR signal in an imaging context is introduced. This pulse sequence is a hybrid version of the "single-shot" and "one-shot" inversion recovery (IR) snapshot-FLASH methods. These are also known as "multipoint" IR techniques. The new sequence presented here collects multiple k-space rows at each time point during magnetization recovery, rather than the entire dataset (as in a "single-shot" method) or just one row (as in a "one-shot" method). Thus, it reduces the scanning time without significant sacrifice of the small sampling time advantage of the one-shot IR snapshot-FLASH methods. Furthermore, this approach does not require a high-performance gradient system. Here, we demonstrate that a single slice human brain (1)H(2)O T(1) map with a nominal in-plane resolution of less than (1 mm)2can be obtained at 4 T in about 4 min. Published 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.