An optimized 3D inversion recovery prepared fast spoiled gradient recalled sequence (IR FSPGR) on a 3-T scanner for carotid plaque imaging is described. It offers clear blood and fat signal suppression at the carotid artery bifurcation and highlights the regions of carotid plaque affected by hemorrhage at 3 T with high contrast and contrast-to-noise ratio compared with other sequences. It can potentially be used to replace the more traditional noncontrast T(1)-weighted 2D black-blood imaging for hemorrhage detection and offers additional benefits of high-resolution 3D volumetric visualization.