Fast three‐dimensional proton spectroscopic imaging of the human brain at 3 T by combining spectroscopic missing pulse steady‐state free precession and echo planar spectroscopic imaging

The combination of the principles of two fast spectroscopic imaging (SI) methods, spectroscopic missing pulse steady‐state free precession and echo planar SI (EPSI) is described as an approach toward fast 3D SI. This method, termed missing pulse steady‐state free precession echo planar SI, exhibits a considerably reduced minimum total measurement time T_min, allowing a higher temporal resolution, a larger spatial matrix size, and the use of k‐space weighted averaging and phase cycling, while maintaining all advantages of the original spectroscopic missing pulse steady‐state free precession sequence. The minor signal‐to‐noise ratio loss caused by using oscillating read gradients can be compensated by applying k‐space weighted averaging. The missing pulse steady‐state free precession echo planar SI sequence was implemented on a 3 T head scanner, tested on phantoms and applied to healthy volunteers. Magn Reson Med, 2011. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.