Fig. 2.

Multi-band slab placement and 3D ms-EPI pulse sequence. (a) With six slabs excited using a 3-band RF pulse, a total of eighteen slabs provide full brain coverage in z. Odd (blue) and even (pink) slabs are acquired sequentially in two separate groups to avoid T1 cross-talk artifacts. 3D slice-encoding is performed with a spin echo pulse sequence (b) in which kz-encoding gradients are applied before and after slice imaging echoes. A second spin echo is used to acquire low resolution navigator images at kz=0.