Eliminating banding artifacts in bSSFP using Parallel Transmission in vivo

Motivation: The bSSFP sequence is a highly efficient acquisition strategy that provides high SNR. At ultra-high field it becomes more susceptible to B0 inhomogeneities which leads to banding artifacts and signal loss. Goal(s): To eliminate banding artifacts without SNR loss or time penalty. Approach: A pair of parallel transmit (pTx) pulses was designed to compensate for the off-resonance dephasing accumulated over the duration of one TR in the human brain at 7T. Results: With a tailored pair of pTx pulses it was possible to compensate for off-resonance effects which lead to banding artifacts whilst also providing a uniform excitation in a single bSSFP acquisition. Impact: Parallel transmit is well known for efficient radiofrequency pulse designs that produce uniform excitations. We showed that pTx pulses can simultaneously address other off-resonance effects accumulated over the duration of one TR in the human brain at 7 Tesla.