IDEAL at 7T in Mice Using Asymmetric Spin Echo and Gradient Echo Acquisitions

An asymmetric spin echo (aSE) technique was developed to produce uniform, robust fat-water separation in mice at 7T using Iterative Decomposition of Water and Fat with Echo Asymmetry and Least-squares estimation method (IDEAL). The aSE technique had superior image quality as compared to gradient echo IDEAL estimation. Both the spin echo and gradient echo IDEAL techniques resulted in more accurate fat-water separation than chemical shift selective imaging. A vectorized IDEAL reconstruction was used to speed up the estimation by using multiple CPUs and graphics cards.