"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made oj': Benjamin Franklin This book describes the technical principles and applications of echo-planar imaging (EPI) which, as much as any other technique, has shaped the develop ment of modern magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The principle of EPI, namely, the acquisition of multiple nuclear magnetic resonance echoes from a single spin excitation, has made it possible to shorten the previously time-con suming MRI data acquisition from minutes to much less than a second. Interest ingly, EPI is one of the oldest MRI techniques, conceived in 1976 by Sir Peter Mansfield only 4 years after the initial description of the principles of MRI. One of the inventors of MRI himself, Mansfield realized that fast data acquisition would be paramount in bringing medical applications of MRI to full fruition. The technological challenges in implementing EPI, however, were formidable. Until the end of the 1980s few people believed that EPI would be clinically useful, since its complexity was far greater than that of "conventional" MRI methods.

1. The Historical Development of Echo-Planar Magnetic Resonance Imaging

2. Theory of Echo-Planar Imaging
3. Echo-Planar Imaging Hardware
4. Echo-Planar Imaging Pulse Sequences
5. Echo-Planar Image Reconstruction
6. Echo-Planar Imaging Image Artifacts
7. Physiological Side Effects of Fast Gradient Switching
8. Echo-Planar Imaging Angiography
9. Diffusion Imaging with Echo-Planar Imaging
10. Echo-Planar Imaging of the Abdomen
11. Abdominal Diffusion Imaging Using Echo-Planar Imaging
12. Echo-Planar Imaging of the Heart
13. Perfusion Imaging with Echo-Planar Imaging
14. Clinical Applications of Neuroimaging Using Echo-Planar Imaging
15. Echo-Planar Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Human Brain Activation
16. Research Issues Using Echo-Planar Imaging for Functional Brain Imaging
17. Echo-Planar Imaging on Small-Bore Systems
18. Echo-Planar Imaging-Hybrids: Single Shot RARE
19. Echo-Planar Imaging-Hybrids: Turbo Spin-Echo Imaging
20. Echo-Planar Imaging-Hybrids: Gradient and Spin-Echo (GRASE) Imaging
21. Spiral Echo-Planar Imaging.