Brain imaging without central brightening at 3T using tailored RF and Parallel Transmit

Purpose: Neuro-imaging at high field suffers from signal and contrast variation caused by inhomogeneity in the transmit field. Uniform excitation can however be achieved by custom designing the excitation, and particularly by use of parallel transmit (PTx) methods. We explored this concept for a whole brain MP-RAGE sequence at 3T. Materials and Methods: Studies were performed on a 3T Achieva MRI system (Philips healthcare) fitted with an 8 element parallel transmission body coil and using an 8 channel SENSE head receiver coil. MP-RAGE consists of an (adiabatic) inversion pulse followed by a train of small tip an…