Outer Volume Suppression (OVS) for Single Voxel Spectroscopy (SVS) at 7 Tesla using interleaved B1 shim settings

Introduction High-field magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) has the potential to provide enhanced neurochemical information based on increased sensitivity and higher spectral resolution. However, problems arising in high-field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), such as more pronounced B0 and B1 inhomogeneities, may decrease spectral resolution and ultimately the quantification accuracy. A multi-channel transmit RF system is an emerging technology to mitigate B1 inhomogeneity during RF transmission. With RF shimming, an optimized combination of different RF amplitudes and phases per transmit channel results in a higher uniformity of the B1 field. Previous work has shown the successful implementation of B1 shimming localization in spectroscopic imaging [1]. The purpose of this work is to utilize this method for outer volume suppression (OVS) in single voxel spectroscopy (SVS) using interleaved RF shim settings.