Echo-Planar Imaging
F Schmitt, Siemens Healthcare, Erlangen, Germany
ã 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Historical Development of Echo-Planar Imaging
Echo-planar imaging (EPI), was invented by Sir Peter Mansfield
in 1977 (Mansfield, 1977) long time before major companies
invested in the development of clinical magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI), which started in honest in 1983. Peter Mansfield
received the Nobel Prize in 2003 for his contribution in the
development of MRI and EPI in particular. His research group
in Nottingham focussed on the technical challenges of image
formation under bipolar gradients. In the late 1980s it eventually
reached the state to be used for abdominal and cardiac imaging
(Howseman et al., 1988) and eventually also for neuro-imaging
(Stehling et al., 1991).
In the mid 1980s Ian Pykett and Richard Rzedzian, both
being trained in Sir Peter Mansfield’s lab, founded Advanced
NMR (ANMR) which used a 2 T magnet for its EPI development.
In 1987 they published the first in vivo human body imaging
using EPI (Pykett and Rzedzian, 1987). ANMR provided the first
commercially available EPI-only scanner. It was installed at the
Massachusetts General Hospital’s (MGH) research center in
Charlestown, MA, USA in 1990. An existing General Electric
Signa 1.5 T scanner was retrofitted with the ANMR Instascan™
console and EPI capable gradients driven in a resonance circuit
(Cohen and Weiskoff, 1991). At Siemens EPI activities started in
1987, with the first imaging results in March 1988 (Schmitt,
et al., 1988a,b). However, the results from MGH running an
ANMR EPI scanner spurred the efforts at the other major ven-
dors significantly. This effort resulted in the first EPI scanner
installed in a clinical environment at the Beth Israel Hospital
(BIH) in Boston under Bob Edelman’s guidance in summer
1992 (Edelman et al., 1994b; Schmitt et al., 1993).
As EPI is the fastest MRI technique, the early EPI scanners
were primarily dedicated to explore applications in the body
and heart to freeze the motion. Other body organs also have
been explored, such as liver and kidney imaging (Müller et al.,
1994) and even cardiac diffusion (Edelman et al., 1994a,b) has
been tried out. However, it soon turned out that the suscepti-
bility effects at the heart-lung tissue interface or the air in the
bowels were too severe to make this a valuable and acceptable
clinical tool for general whole body applications. While the
MGH primarily focussed on EPI for perfusion and succeeding
to neuro-functional MRI (fMRI), eventually the BIH scanner
was successfully used for early stroke imaging and therefore
opened the door to important clinical use.
The discovery that MRI is feasible to see signal changes
when performing visual tasks was key to the dissemination of
EPI as a method on clinical scanners for the use in neuro-
science. Therefore, I describe in short the key events which
are important for understanding the role of EPI in functional
MRI and its technology development.
That blood changes its tranverse relaxation time depending
on oxygenation was shown by Thullborn et al. (1982). Seiji
Brain Mapping: An Encyclopedic Reference http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-397025-1.00006-3
Ogawa described the blood oxygenation level dependent
(BOLD) effect in 1990 and proposed to apply it for measuring
brain function after activation (Ogawa et al., 1990). His first
mouse imaging data were acquired by using a conventional
gradient-recalled echo (GRE) imaging sequence at a vertical
bore 7 T magnet. In Boston, at the MGH, John Belliveau
(Belliveau et al., 1991) performed the first contrast enhanced
(CE) human in vivo functional MRI experiment using EPI.
While Belliveau focussed on CE methods, Ken Kwong per-
formed the first susceptibility weighted EPI-GRE based
human in vivo experiment in 1991 (Kwong, 2012).
After initial animal experiments, Seiji Ogawa and Kamil
Ugurbil succeeded with human in vivo fMRI on a 4 T scanner
in Kamil Ugurbil’s MRI lab in Minneapolis in 1991 (Ogawa
et al., 1992). Their initial experiments were based on a conven-
tional T1 weighted two dimensional (2D) GRE technique, called
FISP imaging (Oppelt et al., 1986). They later moved to EPI also.
Besides MGH, other groups also recognized that EPI was
important for fMRI and focussed their efforts on this technol-
ogy. In 1991, Peter Bandettini and Eric Wong build their own
EPI gradient coil (Bandettini, 2011) and produced their first
fMRI results in fall 1991. In the end, when they published their
work in 1992, it was in fact the first published paper on human
in vivo BOLD fMRI (Bandettini et al., 1992).
About the same time Bob Turner, an early fellow of Sir Peter
Mansfield in Nottingham, skilled in knowledge about EPI and
gradient coil design built his own z-gradient coil, capable of
performing EPI for fMRI at NIH. He first used it for diffusion
weighted imaging, but realized after the MGH results have
been shown that its use for fMRI is essential. His results were
published in 1993 (Turner et al., 1993).
In Bob Shulman’s lab at Yale, Andrew Blamire developed
his version of EPI on a 2.1 T whole body scanner running a
Bruker Biospec NMR console. His results have been shown at
the ISMRM 1992 in Berlin (Blamire et al., 1992).
In the mid 1980s Le Bihan et al. realized that diffusion con-
trast can be utilized for viewing neurological pathologies in
tumors (Le Bihan et al., 1986). About at the time of the raise of
EPI driven fMRI it was also discovered that the combination of
diffusion weighting with EPI as data acquisition module has great
potential for clinical neurological examinations for the detection
of early onset of stroke (Moseley et al., 1990; Warach et al., 1992).
Eventually ANMR was bought by GE which sold about 20
of these scanners before GE started its own EPI development.
By mid-1990 EPI was introduced with their new generation
scanners by all the major MRI vendors and now is a technique
available in many facets on every MRI platform, ranging from
full size whole body human scanners with field strength’s from
0.5 T up to 11.7 T to animal scanners at field strength up to
16 T and higher.
For further reading on the history of EPI I suggest (Cohen &
Schmitt, 2013; Mansfield, 2013; Ordidge, 1999).
53
54 INTRODUCTION TO ACQUISITION METHODS | Echo-Planar Imaging
Pulse Sequences
The MR signal generation and reception is quite complex and will
not be described in this article. Pulse sequences are the essence of
an MRI machine, as it allows acquiring the data required to
calculate images of the organ on scope. For better understanding
MR imaging methods see Mark Haacke’s book on Physical princi-
ples and sequence design of MRI (Haacke et al., 1999a).
Below, a brief walk from the most basic MR pulse sequence,
the GRE sequence, to the various EPI sequences is given. All
common neuroscience and clinical neurology-related single
shot EPI sequences are described.
The Basic GRE Pulse Sequence
Conventional MR imaging is based on the interaction of the
magnetic moment of proton spins (in water) with static and
dynamic electromagnetic fields. A strong magnet is needed to
create a net polarization of spins which can then be excited with
RF pulses and hence generates the MR signal. Pulsed gradients
(see a typical GRE pulse sequence in Figure 1) are used for slice
selection (SS) and spatial image encoding. The direction of the
three axis gradients are commonly referred to as SS, phase
encoding (PC), and read out (RO) gradient orientation. For SS
an RF-pulse is played out simultaneously with the SS gradient
pulse. The RF-pulse amplitude is commonly expressed with the
so-called excitation flip-angle. If only a single excitation pulse
gets applied, a flip angle of 90
always generates the strongest
MR signal. When driven in steady state, that is, repetitive, the
flip-angle required optimizing contrast and signal-to-noise-ratio
(SNR) for specific applications is lower (10–20
) (Ernst &
Anderson, 1966). This GRE imaging method is also called fast
low angle shot imaging and was invented in 1986 by Haase et al.
(1986).
The gradient echo formation is best explained with the
k-space method. For deeper understanding of the k-space
terminology we suggest (Haacke et al., 1999b). The definition
of k-space is given in eqn [1] below
ðt
kðt Þ ¼ g Gðt Þdt [1]
0
where G(t) defines the time dependent gradient pulse and g the
gyromagnetic ratio (g ¼ 42.578 MHz T1). In graphical terms,
the condition of a gradient echo is achieved when the area
under the (negative polarity) pre-phasing lobe of the RO gra-
dient is balanced by the accumulated area under the (positive
polarity) RO gradient pulse. For clarity reasons these two sec-
tions are shown shaded in Figure 1. Usually, this coincides
with the time when the maximum signal is detected and is
called echo time (TE). While the SS and read-out gradient pulse
remain constant during the entire imaging process for a 2D
imaging experiment, conventional MRI employs a so-called
phase encoding step. After each repetition time (TR) one
(k-space) data line is acquired and the PC gradient is changing
a bit, by stepping in incremental steps of dGPC ¼ 2GPC/N from
GPC to þGPC, where N is the matrix size. Total scan time is
therefore N times TR, while TR is defined application specific.
K-space traversal is line by line as shown in Figure 1. The
image is then calculated by a two dimensional Fourier
Transform (2D FT) of the acquired 2D k-space data (com-
monly called raw data).
The maximum signal can be expressed as
Sðt ¼ TEÞ ¼ So eTE=T2* [2]
with So describing the MR signal without T2* relaxation. While
for T2* the following relation holds
1 1
¼ þ gDBo [3]
T2* T2
with DBo describing the magnetic flux changes across the voxel
caused by magnetic susceptibility differences of the adjacent
tissue (for fMRI this is the BOLD induced susceptibility effect).
T2* decay is happening asymmetrically across the k-space data
line.
For MR angiographic applications, for example, TE and TR
are kept as short as possible, while for measuring the best
BOLD signal for fMRI one needs to prolong TE quite substan-
tially specific to the field strength of the magnet used. It is
generally established that for 1.5, 3, and 7 T TEs of 40, 30,
and 20 ms are used, respectively, while the repetition time TR is
on the order of seconds to avoid or minimize T1 weighting.
Assuming a matrix size of N ¼ 64, which was typically used for
fMRI in the early days, total scan times per image (i.e., slice) are
on the order of 2–5 min for a stack of slices covering the brain
volume of interest. This takes much too long for performing
useful fMRI experiments. But it can be and was used in the early
times of fMRI as no other faster method like EPI was available
(see above in the history section).
EPI Pulse Sequences
Many variants of EPI are possible providing T1, T2, T2*, and
diffusion weighting. Image acquisition is possible in single shot
and multi shot (i.e., segmented EPI). Here we describe all
relevant single shot EPI techniques only. For better understand-
ing of the segmented techniques we suggest (Wielopolski et al.,
1998). Spiral EPI described by Ahn et al. (1986) which is as fast
as EPI is not described in this article. Contrary to EPI which
mostly uses a rectilinear k-space grid, spiral echo-planar sam-
ples the k-space on a spiral trajectory (non rectilinear grid). This
technique is used by some fMRI researcher. For further reading
on this we suggest (Meyer, 1998) as it has not fully made it into
the fMRI.
EPI uses a single shot pulsing scheme, meaning that all k-
space data needed to reconstruct a final image gets acquired
after a single excitation pulse. In contrast to this GRE imaging
uses multiple shots to acquire the corresponding image data.
The key to the EPI sequence is the periodic RO gradient pulse
train shown in Figure 2. All k-space data lines are acquired
under this long RO pulse train. K-space traversal is in meander
like fashion as shown in Figure 2. The resulting MR image is
computed by performing a 2D FT similar to the above
described GRE image reconstruction, but some extra steps of
pre-processing of the k-space data are required. In particular k-
space resampling, phase corrections and time reversal of every
other data line are required in order to fill the k-space properly.
Due to its alternating acquisition under positive and negative
gradient lobes, EPI is very vulnerable to the so-called Nyquist
 INTRODUCTION TO ACQUISITION METHODS | Echo-Planar Imaging 55

a
RF

Raw data Image data

GSS

GPC 2D FT

GRO
K-space Image space
RO →
PC 1 ………………………
2 ………………………
e−t/T2* ………………………
→

.
. ………………………
.
………………………
Signal
.
………………………
………………………
. ………………………
t
. ………………………
TE . ………………………
TR . ………………………
. ………………………
. ………………………
N ………………………
1……………………..………N
(a) K-space trajectory

Figure 1 (a) GRE sequence. Left column: GRE-2D pulse sequence. Note: Condition for a GRE is highlighted in shaded areas of GRO pulse train.
Middle column: typical magnitude raw-data set (above) and rectilinear k-space trajectory (below). Right column: resulting image. (b) 7 T T2* weighted
high-resolution GRE images (1024  1024 matrix size). Left: magnitude image, right: phase image. Note the contrast variations in the phase image
across the optical radiation fiber bundles (see arrows).

or N/2-ghosting artifact which creates double/ghost images
shifted by half the matrix size N and wrapped around in PC
direction. For further reading on EPI image reconstruction we
suggest (Schmitt et al., 1998).
EPI-GRE Sequence
Figure 2 shows the most basic EPI sequence, that is, the
EPI-GRE type which is used for BOLD imaging. The image
is acquired after a single RF-pulse excitation. Shape and
amplitude of PC and the RO gradient pulses are kept
 90˚

RF

GSS
RO

↓
PC 1 ……………………
N…………………………………………….…...………1

↓ 2
……………………
N+1 …………………………………………………….2N

. ……………………
GPC PC blips
. ……………………
. ……………………
.
……………………
……………………
Phase Correction EPI Readout . ……………………
. ……………………
GRO . ……………………
. ……………………
. ……………………
. ……………………
N ……………………
Signal e–t/T2* 1……………………..………N
K-space trajectory

(a) TE

Figure 2 (a) 2D EPI-GRE sequence. Left column: EPI-GRE sequence. MR signal is T2* weighted as indicated in signal trace. Right column: K-space
trajectory is meander like starting from upper right to lower left. Advance in PC direction is generated by little blips in PC direction. (b) Typical 2D
EPI-GRE images through brain taken on a 3 Thead-only MRI system. Scan parameters: Single shot EPI; TE/TR ¼ 3000/50 ms; 128  128 matrix size;
48 slices at 3 mm voxel size.
 INTRODUCTION TO ACQUISITION METHODS | Echo-Planar Imaging 57

constant during the acquisition of the entire image. What is
established with the PC table in a regular GRE sequence is
accomplished by small gradient pulses (so-called blips)
during the zero crossings of the periodically oscillating RO
gradient pulse train. Typically trapezoidal or sinusoidal
pulse shapes are applied. Although sinusoidal RO gradient
pulses have dominated the early times of EPI (Cohen et al.,
1991; Mansfield et al., 1991; Schmitt et al., 1989), these
days, they are neglected entirely and trapezoidal pulses are
only used. For simplicity we therefore stick to trapezoidal
pulses in all the graphical representations of sequences.
Under each half wave of the RO pulse train, a single k-
space data line is acquired. Hence scan time is significantly
shorter, that is, for N ¼ 64 and a typical basic frequency of
1 kHz (corresponding to 500 ms per half wave) a total RO
period of 32 ms is achieved. By considering a few millisec-
onds for the SS the total scan time per slice is below 40 ms,
in case no acceleration methods such as half Fourier imag-
ing (Haacke et al., 1991; Margosian et al., 1986) or parallel
receive, pRX, methods (see succeeding text) are applied. To
cover the entire brain with 3 mm thick slices the resulting
TR is typically on the order of 3–5 s and therefore the total
scan time is also on the order of 3–5 s.
Figure 2 resembles a susceptibility weighted 2D multi slice
EPI-GRE sequence which is widely used across different
magnet field strength. T2* decay is asymmetric around the
echo center at TE. To optimize for strongest BOLD effects the
TE needs to be adjusted accordingly, as described previously. In
the RO gradient axis, an extra pulsing scheme, the phase cor-
rection section, is introduced before the actual EPI readout.
Data acquired under these pulses are used for image recon-
struction, to align the trace of echoes and fit the k-space
smoothly before performing the final image reconstruction
via Fourier Transformation. A more detailed description of
the phase corrections for EPI is presented in (Schmitt and
Wielopolski, 1998).
For fMRI a multi slice scheme covering the brain area of
interest is repeated over and over again until the activation
paradigm is finished. Often 500 volumes are acquired resulting
in a total BOLD scan time on the order of 10–20 min.
EPI-SE Sequence Type
While the EPI-GRE sequence is highly sensitive to the BOLD
effect from large venous vessels, it however, can mimic acti-
vation away from functionally active gray matter (GM) (Olman
et al., 2007). Also, sometimes fMRI experiments request to
separate the BOLD effect of small from large venous vessels at
higher resolution. For this case a so-called Hahn spin-echo
(HSE) (Hahn, 1950) excitation scheme is applied (see Figure 3).

180°
90°

RF

GSS RO →
1 ……………………
1…………………………………………….…...………N

PC 2 ……………………
2N …………………………………………………….N+1

……………………
→

.
GPC
PC blips
. ……………………
.
……………………
……………………
. ……………………
. ……………………
. ……………………
GRO . ……………………
t
. ……………………
. ……………………
. ……………………
N ……………………
e–t/T2
K-space trajectory

e–|t|/T2*

t
t t
TE
(a)

Figure 3 (a) 2D EPI-SE sequence. Left column: EPI-SE sequence. MR signal is T2 weighted as indicated in signal trace. T2* weighting still exists, but is
very minor and occurs only earlier and later to TE. Right column: K-space trajectory is meander like starting from upper left to lower right. Note the
difference in k-space traversal due to 180
HSE refocussing pulse.
(Continued)
58 INTRODUCTION TO ACQUISITION METHODS | Echo-Planar Imaging

Figure 3 cont’d (b-g) Anatomical and functional images from one volunteer taken at 9.4 Tesla. High-resolution anatomical GRE images (b) and (c)
clearly show the veins in both the magnitude and phase representation, respectively. SE-EPI (d) and GRE-EPI (e) have been acquired with 1 mm3
voxel size and show clear activation of the motor and somatosensory cortex (color overlay). Zoomed images of the activation, registered to the
high-resolution anatomical data, are shown in (f) and (g). The locations of the veins are overlaid in blue. The color bar shows the z-score and scaling is
equal in whole brain and zoomed images. Images with permission from MRM and courtesy of Budde, J., Shajan, G., Zaitsev, M., Scheffler, K., &
Pohmann, R. (2014). Functional MRI in human subjects with gradient-echo and spin-echo EPI at 9.4 T. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 71, 209–218.
Max Planck Institute Tübingen.

A HSE is created with a 90
-t-180
-t-TE RF pulse train. At TE
the susceptibility contrast is zero and the signal is purely T2
weighted and can be expressed as
Sðt ¼ TEÞ ¼ So eTE=T2
Susceptibility/T2* weighting is much smaller and is present
only before and after TE and therefore affects the higher spatial
frequency raw-data lines only, as being indicated in Figure 3.
Overall the effects of susceptibility weighting are considered
very small and this technique therefore is better suited for high
resolution fMRI at ultra-high magnetic fields such as 7 T and
above (Budde et al., 2014; Yacoub et al., 2005).
The EPI-HSE excitation scheme is also the basis for diffu-
sion imaging. See succeeding text.
Perfusion Imaging Using EPI
Two types of imaging methods using EPI are available for
qualitative and quantitative perfusion measurement in the
[4] brain. A T2* based CE method using Gadolinium compounds,
such as Gd-DTPA, is commonly used for qualitative evaluation
of perfusion in tumors or stroke. Quantitative blood flow
imaging can be performed with a T1 based method called
arterial spin labeling (ASL).
Dynamic susceptibility contrast perfusion imaging using EPI
Gadolinium bolus imaging is used for qualitative perfusion in
stroke and tumors. To employ this before, during and after
bolus injection of a Gadolinium compound, the entire brain is
 INTRODUCTION TO ACQUISITION METHODS | Echo-Planar Imaging
repetitively scanned with a multi slice GRE-EPI sequence (b.t.
w. this is the method which was used by Jack Belliveau in his
first CE based fMRI experiment). Sometimes an SE-EPI
sequence is used to highlight effects of smaller vessels (see
preceding text). TEs are ranging between 30 and 50 ms and
50 and 80 ms for a GRE-EPI and SE-EPI acquisition respec-
tively. TR is typically kept below 2 s in order to allow sufficient
time points by covering the entire brain. Total acquisition time
is on the order of 90–120 s. Contrast dose is typically
0.1–0.2 mmol kg1.
On the order of 100 time points are scanned. The time course
of selected voxels in a region of interest, that is, tumor or stroke
lesion, can be used to calculate specific maps reflecting the
physiological state of lesion. Typical maps are relative cerebral
blood volume, relative mean transit time, time to peak, etc.
Arterial input function, information is requested (time course
of a selected arterial vessel) for calculating these maps.
Figure 4 shows the basic time course and the achieved
image contrast during a DSC imaging experiment with admin-
istered Gadolinium bolus.
ASL for quantitative perfusion using EPI
MR Imaging can be sensitized to inflowing spins of blood if
these spins have different magnetization state compared to that
of stationary tissue. The technique to achieve this is called
arterial spin labeling introduced by Detre et al. (1992) as con-
tinuous ASL, refined by Edelman and Chen (1998) as EPISTAR
and Wong et al. (1997, 1998) as PICORE and QUIPSS. The
inflowing blood exchanges with the tissue water and therefore
changes the tissue magnetization. Based on this effect quantita-
tive perfusion weighted images can be generated by subtracting
labeled and unlabeled inflowing blood signal images. The
strength of the ASL signal changes, DS, as a function of time
and is also dependent on T1 of blood, T1B. It can described as
 t
DSðt Þ≺B0 e T1B
Signal
500
450
400
350
300
250
0 10
0s 1.5 s 3s 4.5 s
Figure 4 T2* weighted perfusion time curve. Images shown in insert show the actual time stamps from the bolus arrival until 13.5 s after bolus.
59
As T1B prolongs with increasing magnetic field, longer data
acquisition times after the tagging pulses can be utilized and
the overall ASL SNR increases with increasing field strength.
This technique can be applied to achieve quantitative blood
flow measurements or even for fMRI of brain activation. Figure 5
shows a principle ASL sequence. Here an EPI-SE version is shown.
A faster method is using an EPI-GRE sequence module as the basic
acquisition scheme. A tagging slap (inversion) is excited in the
neck region followed by an EPI data acquisition covering the entire
brain. Figure 6 shows a functional MRI finger tapping comparison
of BOLD and ASL, acquired at 7 T. The same areas of the cortex are
activated and demonstrated with both techniques.
Diffusion Weighted Imaging Using EPI
The mostly used pulse sequence scheme for diffusion weighting
imaging (DWI) is the so-called Stejskal–Tanner scheme (Stejskal
and Tanner, 1965) which uses an EPI-SE sequence as the basic
imaging module. Additional to the EPI-SE pulse scheme strong
diffusion weighting gradient pulses are placed symmetrically
around the 180
refocussing pulse (see Figure 7). The signal at
echo-time TE with existing diffusion weighting can therefore be
expressed as
DSðt ¼ TE;bÞ ¼ So eTE=T2 ebD [6]
D describes the tissue dependent diffusion coefficient and b the
strength of the diffusion weighting, described in the simplest
form of rectangular diffusion lobes shown in Figure 7 as
 
d
b ¼ g2 G2 d2  D  [7]
3
Clinical diffusion sequences for exploring early stroke, for
example, use b-weighting of 1000 s mm2. A series of different
b-weighting for a stroke case is shown in Figure 8. It is obvious
that the diffusion contrast peaks at about 1000s mm2. which in
[5] fact is commonly used in clinical routine stroke scanning.
20 30 40
Time point
6s 7.5 s 9s 10.5 s 12 s 13.5 s
60 INTRODUCTION TO ACQUISITION METHODS | Echo-Planar Imaging
Inversion 180°
90°
RF
TI
GSS
GPC
Imaging
slices
Inversion
slab
GRO
Figure 5 2D EPI-ASL sequence. Typically a thick slab in the neck region is inverted and after a wait time of TI an EPI-SE sequence is used to acquire the
flow sensitive MR signal.
Figure 6 Motor task ASL experiment (left) and its corresponding
BOLD fMRI experiment (right) taken at 7 T. Both acquisitions show
activation in the right motor sensory area. Images courtesy Lawrence L.
Wald.
In general, the diffusion coefficient is not a scalar quan-
tity but will exhibit a directional dependence. For example,
water molecules can move rather freely along axonal fibers,
but are restricted in their motion perpendicular to fiber axis.
Thus, a tensor model is commonly applied which sets the
stage for advanced processing techniques like fiber tracking.
It requires a modification of the pulse sequence such that
diffusion lobes are applied in all three gradient directions
and vary in amplitude. Diffusion tensor imaging is one
variant of DWI, allowing to track neuronal fibers. It has
one caveat though; crossing fibers in a single voxel are
beyond the scope of the model and thus cannot be resolved
(Tournier et al., 2013). To overcome this uncertainty the
HSE-180°
t
TE
most general form of diffusion weighting (and processing)
called diffusion spectrum imaging (DSI) or high angular
resolution diffusion imaging (Tuch et al., 1999; Figure 9),
is applied. The latter employs significantly stronger b-weight-
ing, typically 5000–15 000 s mm2. Conventional clinical
scanners therefore only achieve rather long echo-times
(over 100 ms) for those highly b-weighted scans.
Diffusion imaging is starving for SNR as the MR signal
decays very rapidly with increasing b-value, very strong gradi-
ents are therefore needed to achieve short echo-times. Experi-
mental gradient systems performing in such a range have been
developed for the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research
called Human Connectome Project (see ‘Relevant Websites’)
(Kimmlingen et al., 2012).
Figure 10 demonstrates what can be accomplished with
very high b-values at short TE. At b-values of
b ¼ 10 000 s mm2 still MR signal is visible, not visible at
longer TE. It is also obvious that a better fiber detection is
possible with those high b-weighted at shorter TE (Wedeen et
al., 2012).
Other EPI Sequence Variants Interesting for NeuroScience
Some sequence types which are kind off forgotten and are not
necessarily included in clinical scanners are worth mentioning
as they may provide interesting contrast for particular neuro-
science questions.
Inversion recovery-EPI-GRE and Inversion recovery-EPI-SE
T1 contrast is not easily possible with EPI. Standard T1 GRE
sequences use a low flip GRE sequence with as short as
 INTRODUCTION TO ACQUISITION METHODS | Echo-Planar Imaging 61

180°
90°
t
RF

TE

GSS

GDiff

GPC

d d
D

GRO

Figure 7 2D EPI-Diffusion weighted imaging sequence applying the Steijskal–Tanner diffusion pulsing scheme. The basic sequence is an EPI-SE
sequence with strong diffusion sensitizing gradient lobes (GDiff) between 90
–180
pulse and 180
-RO module. These gradient lobes can vary in
amplitude and direction depending on the DTI pulsing scheme. On clinical scanners (Gmax 45 mT m1) with b1000 this pulsing scheme results in
echo-times of about 80–100 ms.

possible TR. As the EPI RO train is rather long that method

b values does not work well for EPI as the TR would be too long and
s mm−2 additionally there is always a strong T2 and T2* weighting
involved. Instead, similar to the MPRAGE sequence (Mugler
35
& Brookman, 1991) an inversion recovery (IR) 180
pulse is
applied to invert the Mz magnetization. After a certain wait
time, TI, the regular EPI GRE (see Figure A2(a)) or SE (see
141 Figure A2(b)) pulse scheme is applied. TI is usually set to
null specific tissue type T1, such as fat, WM or, GM. In
principle, form a series of different TI’s one can calculate a
318 T1 image (Ordidge, Gibbs, Chapman, Stehling, & Mansfield,
1990). Figure A2(c) shows a mid-slice series of TI ranging
from 0 to 3800 ms. A TI of about 1200 ms provides great
GR/WM contrast. This TI, for example, can be best used to
565
overlay fMRI activation maps as the image distortion can be
adjusted the same as for the BOLD sequence, i.e., no mis-
alignment between the BOLD and the anatomical scans is
883 present.

1271
Figure 8 2D multi slice EPI diffusion weighted scanning in patient with
a stroke in left MCA. Left column shows the b-weighting. Common
clinical practice uses a b-value of 1000 s mm2. Images courtesy Steven
Warach, Bob Edelman, BIH.
EPI-GRE-SE
As mentioned above EPI-GRE used for BOLD is very sensitive
to larger venous vessels, while EPI-SE is more sensitive to
smaller vessels. Normally when exploring these two excitation
methods they are applied consecutively. It can, however, be
combined in one pulse sequence as shown in Figure A3. First
the T2* weighted GRE signal is acquired and after a 180

inversion pulse the T2 (and weakly T2*) weighted HSE signal
 180°
90°
t
RF

TE

GSS

GPC

GRO

Figure 9 2D EPI-DSI sequence with diffusion encoding in three directions. Due to the typically very high b-weightings used in DSI long echo-times in
the excess of 100 ms is resulting. This method is therefore better used in very high performing gradient systems (Gmax > 100 mT m1).

b = 10 000 s mm−2, 1.5mm isotropic resolution diffusion weighed images (single direction)

Gmax = 40 mT m−1 100 mT m−1 300 mT m−1

bmax = 10 000 s mm−2 10 000 s mm−2 10 000 s mm−2 15 000 s mm−2

Gmax = 40 mT m−1 100 mT m−1 200 mT m−1 300 mT m−1

Figure 10 Upper row: Diffusion weighted images (single direction) acquired at Gmax ¼ 40 mT m1, 100 mT m1 and 300 mTm1 with
b ¼ 10,000 s mm2 and 1.5 mm isotropic resolution. Corresponding TE is 120, 80, 50 ms, respectively. i.e. with increasing available maximum
gradient strength shorter echo times are achieved and hence SNR of the diffusion weighted scans is significantly improved. Data acquired with the 64
channel brain array. Lower row: Effect of gradient strength on diffusion MRI of path crossings. DSI with peak gradients Gmax 40, 100, 200, and
300 mT m1, with mixing time adjusted for constant bmax 10 000 s mm2 are shown in panels 1–3 (from left to right), and bmax 15 000 in panel 4. As
noted, TE’s are minimized for each Gmax. The total number of path solutions identified within the Superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF; horizontal
green, at center) increases by about 50% from the conventional (40 mT m1) to ultra-high gradient levels. Crossing pathways increase more
dramatically, their count increases by 2–3x from conventional to intermediate gradient performance (100 mT m1), and an additional 2–3x gain from
intermediate to the ultra-high gradients (100 vs 300 mT m1). Images courtesy V. Wedeen and L.L. Wald, MGH Martinos Center.
 INTRODUCTION TO ACQUISITION METHODS | Echo-Planar Imaging
is acquired (Schmitt et al., 1988b). However, due to the long
EPI RO train, a long TE is expected for the SE acquisition,
which results in a low SNR. This method therefore is better
suited for ultra high field imaging at 7 T and above.
EPI Limitations and Caveats
Magnetic Susceptibility and Its Effect on Image Quality
Human tissue has certain magnetic properties which become
relevant when exposed to an external magnetic field, H 0 , pro-
duced by the magnet coil winding. In general it can increase or
decrease the magnetic field (the flux) inside the human tissue,
depending on its magnetic properties i.e., dia, para od ferro
magnetic tissue. For further reading on magnetic susceptibility
we suggest (Ernst & Anderson, 1966). The relation between the
magnetic flux, B 0 , (the effective field the tissue is exposed to)
and the external field H 0 is describe with eqn [8]
B 0 ¼ m0 ð1 þ wÞH 0 [8]
m and x describe the magnetic permeability and susceptibility
(see also Ernst & Anderson, 1966)
Considering a tissue interface with susceptibility w1 and w2 a
local field inhomogeneity
DB0 ¼ ðw1  w2 ÞB0 [9]
is caused, which results in local image distortion, Dx, and
phase differences, DF, as shown in eqns [10] and [11] below.
DB0
Dx ¼ [10]
G
Significant image artifacts arise due to these local inhomo-
geneities. For further reading we suggest (Lüdeke et al., 1985).
For EPI sequences the relevant gradient axis is the very low
strength equivalent PC gradient. Therefore severe distortions
can be seen in regions of strong susceptibility changes, such as
the eye and nasal sinus. Change of the polarity of the PC
gradient is changing the distortion behavior significantly, that
is, it can either stretch or squeeze those regions (see Figure 11).
This leaves room to optimize EPI accordingly to minimize
distortion effects.
Signal voids due to phase cancelation caused by intra-voxel
signal dephasing is also a common susceptibility-related issue
with EPI, described with eqn [11]
DFgDB0 t [11]
Especially the nasal sinus regions, the top of frontal lobe
and the region close to the ear canals are prone to signal voids
when using EPI. The appearance of gross signal void suscepti-
bility effects in echo-planar images is demonstrated with vary-
ing slice thickness (Figure 12(a)) and TEs (Figure 12(b)).
Obviously these are effects which limit the usability of EPI,
when not counter acted. Thin slices and reasonable short TE is
helpful. Applying in-plane acceleration methods, as described
later in this chapter, is also helping. An example of distortion
minimization is shown in Figure 11(b). Acceleration beyond
R ¼ 2 helps to reduce these uncertainties. Also, there are
correction methods known to reduce the susceptibility-caused
63
distortions. These methods need extra scans in order to correct
for static (Jezzard & Balaban, 1995) and dynamic (van Gelde-
ren, de Zwart, & Stareweicz, 2007; Visser, Poser, Bart, & Zwiers,
2012) B0 deterioration. An image example using a similar
(static) technique (Zaitsev, Hennig, & Speck, 2004) is shown
in Figure 11(c). Acquisition parameters are the same as shown
for Figure A2(c). Most recently, methods have been proposed
to compensate for dynamic B0 variations.
Acquisition Speed is Limited by Physiological Effects due
to Peripheral Nerve Stimulation
When gradients are switched with high amplitudes and slew-
rates physiological side effects, such as peripheral nerve
stimulation (PNS) can occur. This effect was first reported
when applying EPI sequences in humans, causing muscle
twitching at the location of the strongest exposed field
(Figure 13; Budinger et al., 1991; Cohen et al., 1989; Fischer
et al., 1989). One way to mitigate this effect is by shortening
the linearity volume as shown in Figure 13. Head gradients
show the highest PNS thresholds as the gradient field extend is
typically very short (covering the head/brain only).
In general, the PNS threshold expressed in gradient
strength, GTH, is a linear function of the rise time, TRise, when
periodic gradient pulses are applied, such as it is used in EPI.
Sinusoidal and trapezoidal pulse trains result in slightly differ-
ent slopes of the threshold curves as shown in Figure 14 left,
but still preserve the linear relation of GTH  TRise (Irnich,
1993). Interesting to note is the fact that after a certain number
of periods (16 cycles) the thresholds reach a minimum
(Figure 14, right) (Schmitt et al., 1998).
Safe operation is guaranteed by implementing PNS safety
monitors who basically resemble the linear relation of Figure 14
and avoid PNS by staying below this linear threshold curve.
Quality Assurance and Temporal Stability
fMRI exams using EPI-BOLD acquisition is a highly repetitive
process, that is, the same stack of slices covering the brain is
repeated over and over again to follow the excitation paradigm.
Hence time points of each voxel are created and analyzed along
the time axis. Ideally one assumes that everything works per-
fectly and no extra noise from the MRI machinery or subject
itself is introduced. However, this is not the case. Both, the MRI
scanner and the human brain introduce statistical and systema-
tical changes which need to be considered.
During scanning of the long lasting EPI acquisitions the
gradient system may heats up and expands. That can cause a
frequency drift (f0(t)) as the paradigm progresses. As an
effect a thermal drift in the temporal BOLD signal is visible
which may render an fMRI experiment useless if not coun-
ter acted (similar to what can be seen in Figure 15(b) top
left). To solve this the calibration scan (see Figure 2) is used
to extract the frequency drift f0(t) and shift the image
according to its f0 drift. Also, imperfections in shim, gradi-
ents and RF electronic may cause sudden changes in the
BOLD signal which are virtually impossible to compensate.
This was a common problem of the early days of fMRI and
now is more or less fixed through careful engineering of the
64 INTRODUCTION TO ACQUISITION METHODS | Echo-Planar Imaging

RO →
PC

(a)

Figure 11 (a) Susceptibility artefacts. Distortion in eyes and nasal sinus. Polarity of PC gradient is inverted between left and right image, causing
stretching and squeezing of the eyes and nasal sinus region, respectively. (b) 1 mm resolution diffusion-weighted images showing improvement in
frontal lobe susceptibility distortion as acceleration is increased beyond R ¼ 2. Images acquired at 3 T with a 32ch head coil. Data courtesy of L.L. Wald,
MGH Martinos Center. (c) Distortion correction of EPI images via PSF deconvolution. EPI-GRE acquisition taken at 7 T with a 32RX head coil.
Slice thickness 1.4 mm; #slices ¼ 10; in plane resolution 1.41.4 mm2; FOV 224224; Matrix 160160; Partial Fourier 6/8; GRAPPA factor 3;
TR/TE ¼ 5000/25 ms.
 INTRODUCTION TO ACQUISITION METHODS | Echo-Planar Imaging
21 ms 30 ms 40 ms 50 ms 60 ms
(b)

Figure 12 (a) Susceptibility artefacts. Through-plane signal void as a function of slice thickness. The thicker the slice the more severe the signal voids. Image courtesy Lawrence L. Wald, MGH. (b) Susceptibility
artefacts. In-plane signal void as a function of echo time TE. The longer TE the more the signal voids are pronounced. Therefore BOLD fMRI is a balance between the desired BOLD signal effect and the
accompanying susceptibility aretfacts. Image courtesy Lawrence L. Wald, MGH.

65
66 INTRODUCTION TO ACQUISITION METHODS | Echo-Planar Imaging
B
Bmax
zS
FOVS
FOVL
Figure 13 Peripheral nerve stimulation in relation to short and long gradients illustrated with a z-gradient. PNS occur at location of strongest magnetic
flux exposure.
GTh(TRise)
TRise
Figure 14 PNS threshold gradient amplitudes as a function of gradient pulse rise time G ¼ fct(T ) for sinusoidal and trapezoidal pulse trains (left).
When increasing the numbers of pulses per pulse train, threshold reduces by about 30% and reach a stable value at about 16 periods.
entire gradient chain. However, care must be taken in order
to understand the fidelity of the MRI scanner in use for
fMRI. As the BOLD signal is on the order of a few percent,
overall the temporal stability requirements for performing
good fMRI should not exceed 0.5% peak–peak with thermal
drift compensated.
Clinical MRI exams are less vulnerable to these fluctuations
compared to fMRI scans. Therefore, a daily quality assurance
(QA) procedure is helpful to determine the status of an MRI
scanner when used for fMRI. The evaluation procedure was
introduced by Robert Weisskoff in 1996 (Weisskoff, 1996) and
is now considered the gold standard for performing quality
assurance for fMRI.
It is important to note that the brain itself creates physio-
logical noise which appears in the temporal behavior of the
BOLD signal. This was carefully investigated over the last
decade and can be best understood by reading the publications
of Triantafyllou, Wald et al. (Triantafyllou et al., 2005, 2011)
which describe these phenomena over a range of field strength
of 1.5, 3, and 7 T. To demonstrate the relation of machine
noise and physiological noise see Figure 15. It shows temporal
fMRI signals of white matter (WM), gray matter (GM), and
cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) as well as from a small phantom
attached to the skull. It is obvious that the MRI machine noise,
taken from the phantom, should be smaller than the physio-
logical noise.
zL z
Z-gradient
GTh(#pulse)
~30%
1 N #periods
Th Rise
Accelerated EPI
EPI is the fastest MRI pulse sequence existing. However, accel-
eration is still advantageous for a variety of reasons. One
reason for accelerating is to minimize susceptibility artefacts,
that is, distortion and signal voids, as described above. Another
reason is data throughput, that is, how many slices per seconds
can be acquired. This is generally achieved by using knowledge
of the spatial extend of the RF coil profiles of multi-channel
receive coils which are common these days. All major vendors
offer head RX coils with up to 32 RX channels for clinical
scanners now. Experimental coils have been proposed and
introduced offering up to 128 RX channels allowing even
further accelerations in MR imaging (Keil and Wald, 2013;
Wiggins et al., 2009).
Acceleration schemes are basically differentiated by
methods which accelerate the scan time per image (i.e., in-
plane) or by accelerating the scan time per stack of slices (i.e.,
through-plane). Here we briefly describe these two basic
methods, as they are interwoven into the EPI acquisition.
In-Plane Acceleration
The general terminology for accelerated MR imaging is parallel
imaging, abbreviated as pRX. These methods have been
 INTRODUCTION TO ACQUISITION METHODS | Echo-Planar Imaging 67

WM

CSF

PH

GM

(a)

1640 1135
Phantom 1130 CSF
1630
1125
Mean signal over ROI
Mean signal over ROI

1120
1620
1115
1610 1110
1105
1600
1100
1095
1590 Stability(*)~ 0.5% peak–peak Stability ~ 1.8% peak–peak
(*) after detrending 1090
1580 1085
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Time points Time points

840 910
WM GM
835 905
Mean signal over ROI

Mean signal over ROI

830 900

825 895

820 890

815 Stability ~ 0.7% peak–peak 885 Stability ~ 1.1% peak–peak

810 880
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
(b) Time points Time points
Figure 15 (a) Cross sectional EPI-BOLD scan with adjacent phantom to the right taken on a 3T head scanner. Red boxes show 77 pixel
ROIs to be evaluated (see below). Scan parameter are TE ¼ 20 ms, TR ¼ 2000 ms, matrix size is 6464. (b) Time course evaluation of ROIs
(shown in red in Figure 15 (a)) do reflect MRI scanner noise and physiological noise of an fMRI experiment. Data courtesy of C. Triantafilou
and L. L. Wald, MGH.
68 INTRODUCTION TO ACQUISITION METHODS | Echo-Planar Imaging
invented at the turn of the last millennium. Pruessmann et al.
(1999) proposed the SENSE method, followed by Sodickson
(2000) who introduced SMASH. The GRAPPA method was
announced by Griswold et al. (2002) and later refined as
CAIPIRHINA (Breuer et al., 2005). Of these techniques
SENSE and GRAPPA are the most commonly used for fMRI.
In-plane acceleration for EPI shortens the RO pulse train. Extra
calibration data need to be acquired to calculate the de-
convolution kernel for the SENSE/GRAPPA pRX reconstruc-
tion. In-plane SENSE and GRAPPA have the major drawback
that with increasing acceleration signal loss and structured
noise appears, rendering very high acceleration useless. SNR
relates to acceleration R as described in eqn [12], while g
describes the geometry factor, which is coil geometry depen-
dent, and SNRo describes the intrinsic SNR without
acceleration
SNR 0
SNRaccel ¼ pffiffiffi [12]
g R
With current RF coil technology acceleration of up to four
times can work reliably. This is very RF coil performance
dependent also.
Through-Plane Acceleration
Through-plane acceleration has been developed over the recent
3–5 years and is making very promising advances. These
methods are based on a technique called multi band (MB).
While the MB method exists since the early 2000s (Larkman
et al., 2001) it recently has been refined to allow very high
acceleration rates (Feinberg et al., 2010; Moeller et al., 2010).
Simultaneous multi slice (SMS) in combination with EPI is
based on blipped CAIPHRINHA and provides excellent
through-plane acceleration (Setsompop et al., 2012). The real
advantage of not losing SNR with increasing acceleration, as it
happens with the in-plane methods, is very helpful to maintain
high SNR with high accelerations. Through-plane acceleration
allows high temporal resolution resting state fMRI (rsfMRI) as
it shortens the scan time per stack of slices below a second (see
Figure 16).
For high resolution DSI with very long scan times of
30 min or longer are normal if no acceleration is applied.
Combining in-plane and through-plane acceleration helps
to shorten scan time significantly (Setsompop et al., 2013).
Figure 17 shows results of this technique taken at a 7 T
scanner. Fifteen-fold acceleration is achieved by applying
threefold in-plane (using GRAPPA) with fivefold through-
plane SMS acceleration.
Appendix
Technology Development of EPI Capable Gradient Systems
The key specifications of a gradient system is shown in
Figure A1 and is characterized by
(a) the maximum achievable gradient amplitude, Gmax,
measured in magnetic flux variation per meter, that is,
mT m1, which is usually expressed as
Gmax ¼ SImax [13]
with S describing the sensitivity of the gradient coil expressed
in units of gradient strength per current, that is, mT m1 A1
and Imax the current needed to achieve Gmax
(b) how fast one can switch a gradient pulse from zero to
maximum gradient strength, commonly expressed as slew rate
(SR) measured in units of gradient strength per second, that is,
T m1 s1.
dG Gmax
SR ¼ ¼ [14]
dt T Rise
Other aspects of importance are
(c) how long one can pulse the gradients before they over
heat. This is generally expressed in something called gradient
power duty cycle (DC) expressed in (%)
ð t2
Gðt Þ2 dt
DCðt1 ; t2 Þ ¼ 2t1  100% [15]
Gref ðt2  t1 Þ
(d) the gradient linearity over a certain volume of interest
which defines the geometric imaging fidelity, that is, if the
images is distorted and how much. Ideally the gradient field
should be perfectly linear and can then be described for a
z-gradient as
Bz ðzÞ ¼ Gz [16]
Note: for MR imaging only the z-component of the magnet
field is important.
MRI gradient performance was very meager at the begin-
ning of MRI (around 1983) compared to these days. Gradient
strength of 1 mT m1 at a SR of 1 T s1 m1 or even lower was
common, while today state of the art whole body scanners of
all major vendors provide at least 40 mT m1 at SRs of
200 T m1 s1. EPI strongly benefits from this increase in per-
formance. In fact, it was EPI which has driven the specification
to these current levels. Another driver for higher gradient spec-
ification is EPI based diffusion weighted imaging. Based on
such requests dedicated whole body gradient systems are now
in use providing 300 mT m1 at SR 200 T m1 s1, two orders
of magnitude stronger than the first commercial scanners pro-
vided (Kimmlingen et al., 2012).
The key components of a gradient system are the gradient
amplifier and the gradient coil. Gradient amplifiers can be
envisioned as very strong audio amplifiers providing high
output voltages and current in order to drive the specific pulses
through the gradient coil. Electric circuits are characterized by
its resistance (measured in O; 1 O ¼ 1 V A1) and inductance
(measured in milli Henry, mH; 1 H ¼ Vs/A). The relations
below (eqns [17] and [18]) describe the requirement for volt-
age and current for driving a trapezoidal gradient pulse
dI
U ¼ L þ RI [17]
dt
With U describing the voltage needed to drive a current change
(dI/dt) in a gradient coil of inductance L and resistance R
(Ohm’s law). Maximum voltage and current for reaching
Gmax at the shortest possible TRise is then expressed as.
 (a) (b)

INTRODUCTION TO ACQUISITION METHODS | Echo-Planar Imaging

(c) (d)

Figure 16 Multiband through-plane acceleration applied to resting state fMRI at 3 T by using a 32 channel RX head coil. TE ¼ 30 ms and 1.6 mm isotropic voxel resolution. (a) Standard fMRI protocol-no
acceleration, TR ¼ 6.7 s, flip angle ¼ 90
. (b) MultiBand 6 acceleration, PE3, 6/8 PF, TR 6.7 ms, flip angle <90
. (c) MultiBand 6 acceleration, PE3, 6/8 PF, TR 1.1 ms, flip angle <90
. (d) 2 mm isotropic voxels.
MultiBand 6 acceleration, PE3, 7/8 PF, TR 0.74 ms, flip angle <90
. Images courtesy E. Yacoub, K. Ugurbil, D. Feinberg et al. CMRR, Minneapolis.

69
70 INTRODUCTION TO ACQUISITION METHODS | Echo-Planar Imaging

Figure 17 In-plane (GRAPPA) and through-plane (SMS) acceleration combined results acquired on a 7 T system by using a 32 channel RX
head coil: In total a R¼15-fold acceleration is achieved. Rin-plane¼3, Rthrough-plane¼5. Images courtesy K. Setsompop & J. Polmeni, MGH Martinos
Center.

G(t)

Gmax

Gmax= S ⋅ I max
t
TRise
I(t)

Imax

dI ( t)
t V(t) = I(t)⋅R−L⋅
dt
V(t)
V max

I max
V max = I max ⋅ R + L ⋅
TRise
t

Figure A1 Grad-pulse characteristics and specifications.

Gmax current required is on the order of 2000 V and 600–900 A,

U max ¼ LS þ RImax [18]
T Rise respectively. This is strongly depending on the gradient coil
Modern gradient coils have inductance and resistance of about design, resulting in lower or higher currents and voltages. For
1 mH and 100 mO, respectively. Sensitivity is on the order of further reading on understanding gradient systems we suggest
0.05 mT m1 A1. Thus the maximum output voltage and Schmitt (2009).
 INTRODUCTION TO ACQUISITION METHODS | Echo-Planar Imaging 71

Inversion 180°
90°

RF

GSS

GPC

GRO

0
+Mz
Magnetization Mz MR signal
Mz/signal e−t/T2*
1−e−t/T1

0
−Mz
TNULL
TI TE
(a)
Inversion 180° 180°
90°

RF

GSS

GPC

GRO

0
+Mz
Magnetization Mz MR signal
Mz/signal e−t/T2
1−e−t/T1

0
–Mz
TNULL
(b) TI TE

Figure A2 (a) 2D Inversion recovery with EPI-GRE data acquisition sequence. (b) 2D Inversion recovery with EPI-SE data acquisition sequence.
(Continued)
Figure A2 cont’d (c) Typical image acquired with a 2D inversion recovery with EPI-GRE data acquisition sequence. Note the different TI causes
different contrast between GM and WM.

180°
90°

RF

GSS

GPC

GRO

e–t/T2*
e–t/T2

e–(t–TEHSE)/T2*

TEGRE

TEHSE

Figure A3 GRE and SE double acquisition EPI sequence.

 INTRODUCTION TO ACQUISITION METHODS | Echo-Planar Imaging
Acknowledgments
The author is grateful to T. Feiweier for reading and correcting
the manuscript and to H. Meyer for helping with sequence
diagrams. I also deeply appreciate receiving the imaging data
of K. Ugurbil, L.L. Wald, V. Wedeen, E. Yakoub, C. Triantafyl-
lou, M.-H. In, O. Speck, G. Budde, K. Scheffler, R. Pohmann, K.
Setsompop, J. Polimeni, S. Warach, and R. Edelman.
See also: INTRODUCTION TO ACQUISITION METHODS: High-
Speed, High-Resolution Acquisitions.
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Further Reading
Perfusion Imaging: Contrast Enhanced Susceptibility Weighted Perfusion
Imaging
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MR Diffusion Imaging
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Basser, P. J., & Jones, D. K. (2002). Diffusion-tensor MRI: Theory, experimental design
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Tuch, D. S., Reese, T. G., Wiegell, M. R., et al. (2002). High angular resolution diffusion
imaging reveals intravoxel white matter fiber heterogeneity. Magnetic Resonance in
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EPI Limitations
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Reilly, J. P. (1989). Peripheral nerve stimulation by induced electric currents: Exposure
to time varying magnetic fields. Medical & Biological Engineering & Computing,
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Relevant Websites
http://www.loni.usc.edu/ – Laboratory of Neuro Imaging.
http://www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/martinos/flashHome.php – Martinos Center for
Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital, Human Connectome
Project funded by National Institute of Health.
http://www.humanconnectomeproject.org/.
http://www.neuroscienceblueprint.nih.gov/connectome/ – NIH Blueprint: The Human
Connectome Project.
http://www.humanconnectome.org/.