Single shot partial dual echo (SPADE) EPI - an efficient acquisition scheme for reducing susceptibility artefacts in fMRI

SPADE is a new acquisition scheme for fMRI based on dual echo EPI. As in previous work, additional spin echo EPI images are used to recover signal in regions that are affected by susceptibility related sensitivity loss in gradient echo EPI. However, with SPADE the additional spin echo images are only acquired for the affected slices, which reduces the acquisition time and enhances the time normalised signal-to-noise ratio. We demonstrate the feasibility of this approach and discuss potential applications of the SPADE technique in fMRI. We conclude that SPADE provides an efficient acquisition scheme for fMRI applications where whole brain coverage and sensitivity is required.