Suppression of aliased labeling planes with a stronger gradient during the RF pulse. When a constant gradient of 1mT/m is used, (a), many aliased labeling plans (solid vertical lines) are within the excitation profile of an individual RF pulse (dashed curve). When the gradient during the RF pulse is increased to 9 mT/m, without changing the average gradient, the primary labeling plane is unaffected (solid vertical line) but the aliased labeling plans, (vertical dashed lines) are suppressed because they fall outside the narrower excitation profile of the RF pulses (dashed curve). A pulse repetition time, Δt, of 1500 μs was used in this simulation.