Abstract: A method for generating a magnetic resonance image includes a series of inversion and saturation pulses, in which the pulses null the MRI signal from both fat and a second tissue for a single MRI acquisition. An inversion pulse is used to provide a null point for the second tissue. A pair of fat-selective saturation and inversion pulses are used to null the MRI signal from fat at approximately the same time as the second tissue reaches its null point. The saturation pulse is used to create a known state for the fat magnetization, allowing the flip angle of the fat-selective inversion pulse to be determined such that the null point of fat approximately coincides with the null point of the second tissue.

Abstract: The present invention includes a method and apparatus to perform rapid multi-slice MR imaging without ECG gating or requiring breath-holding that is capable of renal profusion analysis and angiographic screening. An ungated interleaved pulse sequence is applied in rapid succession, followed by a delay interval. The ungated interleaved pulse sequence is repeatedly played out with the predefined delay interval between each application of the pulse sequence. The resulting images provide not only a series of temporal phases of contrast-enhanced blood uptake for renal profusion analysis, but also provide enough dynamic range to include angiographic screening of the renal arteries.

Abstract: A method and apparatus is disclosed for MR perfusion acquisition using a notched RF saturation pulse. In acquiring such MR data, a volume of slice locations is selected in which MR data is to be acquired. Each given slice is prepared with a notched RF saturation pulse which has a stop-band between a pair of pass-bands. The stop-band is designed to not affect the spins in the next slice in which MR data is to be acquired thereby effectively increasing the TI and increasing SNR and contrast simultaneously. Since the notched saturation pulse saturates all the spins outside of the notched stop-band, the blood in the ventricular chamber is effectively saturated so that the resulting perfusion images have blood pool suppression. Additionally, the use of a 90° presaturation RF pulse provides a high level of immunity to the effects of arrhythmias or other variations in the patient's heart rate.

Abstract: A bipolar, phase-encoding, pre-phaser pulse is employed in each shot of a multi-shot EPI pulse sequence to smooth the phase-encoding gradient first moment throughout the scan. The first moment of the pre-phaser pulse is calculated for each shot in the scan and is played out at the beginning of each shot after the RF excitation.