Trade-off between phase encoding bandwidth and SNR: (a) T2* blurring and B0-induced-distortion (for Δf=50 Hz) dependence on reduction factor and (b) selection of optimal experimental parameters based on the variation of relative SNR with diffusion time and with effective voxel size that takes into account T2* blurring effects. Point A corresponds to sequence parameters that result in maximal SNR (R = 1.51, Δ = 249 ms), Point B corresponds to sequence parameters that provide a compromise between SNR, geometric distortion, blurring and tissue incoherent motion effects (R = 2.86, Δ = 170 ms).