High-resolution motion- and phase-corrected functional MRI at 7 T using shuttered multishot echo-planar imaging

Purpose: To achieve high-resolution multishot echo-planar imaging (EPI) for functional MRI (fMRI) with reduced sensitivity to in-plane motion and between-shot phase variations.

Methods: Two-dimensional radiofrequency pulses were incorporated in a multishot EPI sequence at 7T which selectively excited a set of in-plane bands (shutters) in the phase encoding direction, which moved between shots to cover the entire slice. A phase- and motion-corrected reconstruction was implemented for the acquisition. Brain imaging experiments were performed with instructed motion to evaluate image quality for conventional multishot and shuttered EPI. Temporal stability was assessed in three subjects by quantifying temporal SNR (tSNR) and artifact levels, and fMRI activation experiments using visual stimulation were performed to assess the strength and distribution of activation, using both conventional multishot and shuttered EPI.

Results: In the instructed motion experiment, ghosting was lower in shuttered EPI images without or with corrections and image quality metrics were improved with motion correction. tSNR was improved by phase correction in both conventional multishot and shuttered EPI and the acquisitions had similar tSNR without and with phase correction. However, while phase correction was necessary to maximize tSNR in conventional multishot EPI, it also increased intermittent ghosting, but did not increase intermittent ghosting in shuttered EPI. Phase correction increased activation strength in both conventional multishot and shuttered EPI, but caused increased spurious activation outside the brain and in frontal brain regions in conventional multishot EPI.

Conclusion: Shuttered EPI supports multishot segmented EPI acquisitions with lower sensitivity to artifacts from motion for high-resolution fMRI.