Phase Reversed Interleaved Multi-Echo (PRIME) with phase, field map and motion navigators for highly accelerated distortion-free diffusion MRI

Motivation: Current multi-shot diffusion MRI (dMRI) with gSlider RF encoding acquisition has a limited in-plane acceleration factor per shot and substantially long dead time. Goal(s): To develop a highly accelerated distortion-free dMRI sequence with high fidelity. Approach: We propose a highly accelerated distortion-free dMRI sequence, PRIME, which benefits from incorporating additional echoes for field map estimation, phase correction, and motion estimation without prolonging TR, especially when gSlider RF encoding is used. Results: PRIME enables high-fidelity distortion-free dMRI up to 490μm isotropic resolution with the benefit of adding additional echoes utilizing dead time in gSlider RF-encoded acquisitions. Impact: We propose a highly accelerated distortion-free dMRI sequence, which can achieve 490μm isotropic resolution with high-fidelity field maps, shot-to-shot phase, and motion correction from additional echoes without prolonging repetition time when gSlider RF encoding is used.