A straightforward approach for 3D single-shot ASL based brain perfusion imaging: preventing artifacts due to signal fluctuations

Motivation: Inter-shot signal fluctuations could cause artifacts for multi-shot arterial spin labeling (ASL). 3D Stack-of-spirals (SOS) turbo FLASH (TFL) could easily achieve single-shot with moderate undersampling (R=3). Goal(s): To evaluate the performance of 3D single-shot SOS-TFL acquisition pseudo-continuous ASL (PCASL) and velocity-selective ASL (VSASL), which eliminated the noticed artifacts. Approach: On both simulation and 13 brain scans, 3-shot reconstruction was compared to 1-shot reconstruction with SENSE regularized with compressed sensing (CS-SENSE). Results: Artifacts observed in 3-shot reconstruction were completely eliminated using the 1-shot reconstruction. The inferior part of the brain had higher signal fluctuations and more severe image artifacts. Impact: This study showed that inter-shot signal fluctuations could cause artifacts for multi-shot arterial spin labeling, which were prevented using single-shot. Single-shot is recommended for all scans with potentially large signal fluctuations, which could be achieved with stack-of-spirals turbo FLASH acquisition.