Fig. 2
Schematic overview of the T2 prep-inversion recovery (T2 prep-IR) method, where T2 preparation is performed before the 180º inversion RF pulse. The effective echo time (TEeff) determines how long T2 preparation is performed before the remaining Mz is inverted. As blood is hardly affected by T2 preparation, the Mz of blood and scar are already separated before the 180º inversion RF pulse. Although they have similar T1 relaxation times, blood will have to start from a far more negative Mz level than scar tissue