Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 23, 2026
Quasi-light Storage for Optical Data Packets
Published on: February 6, 2014
Halting the effects of flow enhancement with effective intermittent zeugmatographic encoding (HEFEWEIZEN) in SSFP
Jamal J Derakhshan1, Mark A Griswold, Jeffrey L Sunshine
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
Purpose:
To describe a new method for performing dark blood (DB) magnetization preparation in TrueFISP (bSSFP) and apply the technique to high-resolution carotid artery imaging.
Materials And Methods:
The developed method (HEFEWEIZEN) provides directional flow suppression, while preserving bSSFP contrast, by periodically applying spatial saturation in short repetition time (TR) TrueFISP. Steady-state free precession (SSFP) conditions are maintained throughout the acquisition for the imaging slice magnetization. HEFEWEIZEN was implemented on a 1.5 T scanner with standard receiver coils. Studies were performed in phantoms, eight asymptomatic volunteers, and two patients with low- and high-grade carotid artery stenosis.
Results:
Average flow suppression was 88% +/- 4% (arterial) and 85% +/- 3% (venous) in a multislice study. Stationary signal, contrast, and fine details were maintained with only slight signal suppression (11% +/- 11%). Comparison to diffusion-prepared SSFP in the common carotid artery demonstrated significant improvement in wall-lumen contrast-to-noise ratio efficiency (P = 0.024). DB contrast was achieved with only 13% increased acquisition time (14.3 sec). Further acceleration was possible by confining the DB preparation to the central 60% of k-space.
Conclusion:
A fast, short TR, DB TrueFISP pulse sequence was developed and tested in the carotid arteries of asymptomatic volunteers and patients.
