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Improving EPI quality with GRAPPA in concurrent fMRI-fMRS at 7T
Shahrokh Abbasi-Rad1,2,3, Robert Frost1,2, Nutandev Bikkamane Jayadev4
1Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States.
Motivation:
To develop a sequence for high-quality concurrent measurement of BOLD signal changes (fMRI) and biochemicals metabolite concentrations (fMRS).
Goals:
To implement parallel imaging with inline image reconstruction to improve fMRI image quality in concurrent fMRI-fMRS experiments at 7 T.
Approach:
We modified an fMRS-fMRI sequence to start by acquiring reference lines for GRAPPA reconstruction. Then each TR consists of a semiLASER acquisition for single-voxel MRS, and a GRAPPA-accelerated 3D EPI acquisition.
Results:
We obtained sufficient tSNR (30) map for the 3D EPI and a high SNR (59) and a narrow linewidth (9 Hz) for the spectrum.
Impact:
The modified concurrent fMRI-fMRS pulse sequence enhances the fMRI component to enable whole-brain coverage, reduced distortion, and high spatial resolution, providing a powerful tool for neuroscientists to study the dynamics of neurochemicals simultaneously with the BOLD signal.
