Starter sequence for steady-state free precession imaging.

The dynamic equilibrium exploited by balanced steady-state free precession imaging develops slowly because its formation is dependent on both spin-spin and spin-lattice relaxation times. Attempting to image before steady state is established results in artifacts due to transient signal oscillations. Using a starter sequence to precondition the spin system can significantly reduce the delay before imaging. An improved design for a steady-state starter sequence is presented. The new sequence has the advantage of uniformly exciting the steady-state response for all resonance offsets and can be phase cycled to suppress banding artifacts. Copyright 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc.