Multislice localized parallel excitation for EPI applications in humans

In this work, the opportunities and challenges for the use of parallel transmission in combination with 2D RF pulses designed on EPI-based excitation trajectories for diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) with reduced FOV are presented and analyzed in detail. The use of localized excitation allows for shortening of the EPI read-out, which is especially important for EPI applications outside of the brain. DWI is chosen as a practically important and relevant example demonstrating the key aspects of 2D spatial selection. The properties of accelerated pulses are explored experimentally in phantoms for two different schemes, in which the thickness of the excited limited slices is encoded either along the frequency or phase encoding directions of the excitation trajectory. The feasibility of application of parallel transmission for MR imaging in humans is analyzed based on several pilot experiments. Although the parallel transmission acceleration is demonstrated to work in some examples in the spinal cord and abdomen, the results also uncover a number of challenges. Nonetheless, the reduction of FOV in the phase encoding direction of the read-out train along with the associated substantial shortening of the minimum echo train length and reduction of geometric distortions motivates further search for an advantageous use of the parallel transmit technology in EPI applications. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Concepts Magn Reson Part B (Magn Reson Engineering) 45B: 153–173, 2015