Simultaneous multislice (SMS) imaging techniques.

Area of Science:

• Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
• Medical Imaging Technology

Background:

• Simultaneous multislice (SMS) imaging is a rapidly advancing MRI technique.
• It offers significant acceleration in data acquisition, crucial for applications like echo planar imaging.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present the current state-of-the-art in simultaneous multislice imaging.
• To provide a comprehensive review of SMS techniques, including historical context, technical principles, and applications.

Main Methods:

• Review of historical development of SMS excitation in MRI.
• Detailed explanation of radiofrequency (RF) pulse design for SMS.
• Exploration of encoding and reconstruction methods using transmitter pulse phase, gradient pulses, and multichannel receiver coils.
• Discussion of practical implementation aspects like reference data acquisition and slice crosstalk management.

Main Results:

• SMS imaging provides acceleration equal to the number of simultaneously excited slices.
• It achieves this with only a marginal intrinsic signal-to-noise ratio penalty compared to in-plane parallel imaging.
• SMS techniques can reduce radiofrequency power deposition in certain implementations.

Conclusions:

• SMS imaging represents a major advancement in MRI, enabling faster scans without substantial SNR loss.
• The technique is versatile and applicable to various MRI sequences, including echo planar imaging.
• Future perspectives and outlook for SMS imaging are discussed, highlighting its growing importance.