Section interference in spin echo MR imaging

In multisection MR imaging, the effects of each refocusing pulse inevitably extend beyond a single section and can cause section interference. When the duration between section acquisitions is short, an artifact with alternating bright and dark pixels is observed running through the center of the images. The artifact is caused by stimulated echoes, which are stored longitudinally during phase encoding (in the y direction). The artifact is therefore concentrated onto the line y = 0. The stimulated echoes occur at the switching times of the read gradient, and the artifact can be suppressed by lengthening the duration of the read gradient beyond the sampling window