Signal recovery in free induction decay imaging using a stimulated spin echo.

A novel pulse sequence for acquiring a stimulated spin echo (SSE) is devised and implemented to recover the initial portion of the signal that is usually blanked or distorted in MRI using free induction decays (FIDs). The receiver-phase offset, center of the k-space, and time frame coordinates of the FID data points can be accurately determined from the SSE. A simple numerical method of signal recovery is formulated which can merge the FID and the SSE data for higher extrapolation accuracy. The application of the signal recovery method is demonstrated using the rotating ultrafast imaging sequence (RUFIS). The result shows the importance of experimentally finding the correct time origin of the FID signal. Copyright 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.