EPISTAR MRI: multislice mapping of cerebral blood flow

A method is described for multislice EPISTAR that perfectly compensates magnetization transfer effects. Inflowing arterial spins are labeled with a 360 degrees adiabatic pulse. Two control tags are applied sequentially at the same location as the labeling pulse, each with a 180 degrees adiabatic pulse so the total RF irradiation, frequency shift, and bandwidth of the labeling and control pulses are identical. Therefore, magnetization transfer effects are the same as for the labeling pulse and cancel with image subtraction for all slices. The method also eliminates tagging of venous spins and concern about asymmetric magnetization transfer effects.