FIGURE 1.

Schematic illustration of a single basic block of the QRAPMASTER quantification pulse sequence. Gradients of measurement (Gm), phase-encoding (Gp), and slice-selection (Gs), and the radiofrequency pulse amplitude over time are shown. One block consists of 2 phases. In the first phase (saturation), the 120-degree saturation pulse θ is performed on a slice m, followed by subsequent spoiling. In the second phase, an acquisition is performed on slice n, providing an effective saturation delay time for each specific slice. Typically, 4 delay times are acquired and turbo spin-echo acquisition consists of 2 echoes. The acquisition uses the 90-degree excitation pulse α and multiple 180-degree refocusing pulses. The acquired k-space lines can be combined to fewer echoes than the number of refocusing pulses. The spin-echo acquisition can also be accelerated through an echo-planar imaging technique (GraSE, not depicted).