Cardiac DTI with spiral readouts with third order k-space correction but without inner volume excitation

Using spiral trajectories instead of EPI can reduce the echo time in diffusion weighted MRI. The feasibility of spiral trajectories for cardiac DTI has recently been demonstrated, but the larger object size (i.e torso vs. for example skull) may require an inner volume excitation to keep the readout at an useable duration. Here we examine the use of an undersampled spiral with SENSE reconstruction and standard slice selective pulses. We show that MD and FA derived from the slice selective and inner volume excitation yield comparable values with the MD being higher than the one measured with EPI.