High-resolution functional imaging in the human brain using passband bSSFP at 9.4T

Passband bSSFP at 9.4T provides highly reproducible and stable functional activation maps. Results were compared to GE-EPI and SE-EPI. Based on the very short TE of 2.1 ms for bSSFP, T2*-related signal changes are expected to be very small, which is supported by the similarity of bSSFP and SE-EPI activation maps. As bSSFP is distortion-free, direct overlay to anatomical images is possible. Furthermore, the spatial resolution is not smoothed along the PE-direction due to T2*-related blurring as in EPI-based methods