snapshot CEST++ : the next snapshot CEST for fast whole-brain APTw imaging at 3T.

APTw CEST MRI suffers from long preparation times and consequently long acquisition times (~5 mins). Recently, a consensus on the preparation module for clinical APTw CEST at 3T was found in the community and we present a fast whole-brain APTw CEST MRI sequence following this consensus preparation of a pulsed rf irradiation of 2 s duration at 90% rf duty cycle and a B1,rms of 2 μT. After optimization of the snapshot CEST approach for APTw imaging regarding flip angle, voxel size and frequency offset sampling, we extend it by undersampled GRE acquisition and compressed sensing reconstruction. This allows 2 mm isotropic whole-brain APTw imaging for clinical research at 3T below 1:30 min. With this sequence, a fast snapshot APTw imaging method is now available for larger clinical studies of brain tumors.