Spatially Fourier Excited Acquisition and Reconstruction (SFEAR) for Improved Slice Acceleration

A new 3D Spatially Fourier Excited Acquisition and Reconstruction method (SFEAR) is introduced, in which double-RF pulses are used to excite sinusoidally-modulated slice profiles across a slab. Target spatial frequencies are achieved by varying the time shift between the two pulses, to construct the slice-phase-encode dimension of 3D k-space from Fourier excited acquisitions. SFEAR outperforms conventional GRAPPA in the slice-phase encode dimension, given its inherent ability to undersample sine or cosine components rather than whole planes of 3D k-space. Superior reconstruction of undersampled data and lower g-factor values are demonstrated in both 7T phantom and in vivo data.