Submillimeter balanced SSFP BOLD-functional MRI accelerated with 3D stack-of-spirals at 9.4 T.

Purpose: This work aims to improve the speed of balanced SSFP (bSSFP) acquisition with segmented 3D stack-of-spirals for functional brain studies at ultrahigh field.

Methods: Functional experiments were performed with an accelerated 3D stack-of-spirals sequence with water excitation for fat suppression. The resulting data were reconstructed using an iterative algorithm with corrections for system imperfections such as trajectory deviations and B inhomogeneity.