A comparison of imaging sequences for sodium MR imaging on a 9.4 T whole body machine

Sodium imaging at ultrahigh fields encounters signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) limitations which pose new challenges. Six sequences have been implemented on a 9.4T whole-body scanner and phantom images have been acquired. Individual strengths and weaknesses in SNR, PSF and T2* weighting can be observed. Spiral sequences seem to match the requirements for fast sodium imaging at ultrahigh fields best