Magnetic resonance imaging system and magnetic resonance imaging method

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9791528-B2
Application number	US-201314075753-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 8, 2013
Priority date	Nov 14, 2012
Publication date	Oct 17, 2017
Grant date	Oct 17, 2017

Abstract

A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) method includes defining a plurality of sub-volumes so that each of the sub-volumes includes a plurality of sequential slices of a plurality of slices that make up a volume of a subject, wherein the sub-volumes are divided into a plurality of groups so that any neighboring sub-volumes belong to different groups; applying radio-frequency (RF) pulses including a plurality of frequency components and a selection gradient to the subject to simultaneously excite a plurality of sub-volumes in each of the groups; performing three-dimensional (3D) encoding on each of the excited sub-volumes so that only some slices of the plurality of slices in each of the excited sub-volumes are encoded in a slice direction; acquiring magnetic resonance signals from the encoded sub-volumes; and reconstructing the acquired magnetic resonance signals into image data corresponding to each of the plurality of slices in each of the encoded sub-volumes.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) method comprising:
dividing a volume of a subject into sub-volumes so that each of the sub-volumes comprises sequential slices, wherein the sub-volumes are assigned to groups so that adjacent sub-volumes belong to different groups;
applying radio-frequency (RF) pulses comprising frequency components and a selection gradient to the subject to excite the sub-volumes in each of the groups, wherein the sub-volumes in each group are excited simultaneously;
performing three-dimensional (3D) encoding on each the excited sub-volumes by
selecting some slices for encoding in the slice direction from the sequential slices in each the excited sub-volume, and
performing slice direction encoding on the slices selected for encoding;
acquiring magnetic resonance signals from the encoded sub-volumes; and
reconstructing the acquired magnetic resonance signals into image data corresponding to each of the sequential slices in each of the encoded sub-volumes.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the some slices are selected such that (1+v×fa)-th slices are selected from the sequential slices in each of the excited sub-volumes, wherein fa is a factor for satisfying the condition and is an integer greater than or equal to 1, and v is an integer that increases by 1 beginning from 0 until a value of (1+v×fa) reaches a number of the sequential slices in each of the excited sub-volumes.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the reconstructing of the acquired magnetic resonance signals into the image data comprises:
reconstructing the acquired magnetic resonance signals into image data corresponding to each of the encoded sub-volumes; and
reconstructing the image data corresponding to each of the encoded sub-volumes into the image data corresponding to each of the sequential slices in each of the encoded sub-volumes.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the reconstructing of the acquired magnetic resonance signals into the image data corresponding to each of the encoded sub-volumes and the reconstructing of the image data corresponding to each of the encoded sub-volumes into the image data corresponding to each of the sequential slices in each of the encoded sub-volumes are performed based on channel information of multi-channel receiver coils configured to acquire the magnetic resonance signals.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the groups comprise a first group through an N-th group, the sub-volumes are sequentially and cyclically distributed to the first group through the N-th group, and N is an integer greater than or equal to 2.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising performing the applying of the RF pulses and the selection gradient to the subject, the performing of the 3D encoding on each of the excited sub-volumes, the acquiring of the magnetic resonance signals from the encoded sub-volumes, and the reconstructing of the acquired magnetic resonance signals into image data for all of the groups to obtain reconstructed image data for all of the groups; and
synthesizing the reconstructed image data for all of the groups.

7. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform the method of claim 1 .

8. A medical resonance imaging (MRI) method comprising:
applying a pulse sequence to a subject, the pulse sequence comprising a slice direction encoding gradient, to encode some slices of sequential slices included in each sub-volume of sub-volumes that constitute a volume of the subject, wherein the sub-volumes are assigned to groups so that adjacent sub-volumes belong to different groups;
reconstructing image data corresponding to each of the slices in each of the sub-volumes of one of the groups;
applying the pulse sequence and performing the reconstructing of the image data for all of the groups; and
in response to determining that the applying of the pulse sequence and the reconstructing of the image data have been performed for all of the groups, combining image data corresponding to each of the slices in each of the sub-volumes of each of the groups to create a three-dimensional (3D) volume image of the subject.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the reconstructing of the image data comprises:
reconstructing acquired magnetic resonance signals acquired from the encoded sub-volumes into image data corresponding to each of the sub-volumes; and
reconstructing the image data corresponding to each of the sub-volumes into image data corresponding to each of the sequential slices in each of the sub-volumes of the one group.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the reconstructing of the acquired magnetic resonance signals into the image data corresponding to each of the sub-volumes and the reconstructing of the image data corresponding to each of the sub-volumes into the image data corresponding to each of the sequential slices in each of the sub-volumes of the one group are performed based on channel information of multi-channel receiver coils configured to acquire the magnetic resonance signals.

11. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform the method of claim 8 .

12. A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system comprising:
an MRI scanner configured to:
divide a volume of a subject into sub-volumes so that each of the sub-volumes comprises sequential slices, wherein the sub-volumes are assigned to groups so that adjacent sub-volumes belong to different groups,
apply radio-frequency (RF) pulses comprising frequency components and a selection gradient to the subject to excite the sub-volumes in each of the groups, wherein the sub-volumes in each group are excited simultaneously,
perform three-dimensional (3D) encoding on each of the excited sub-volumes by selecting some slices for encoding in the slice direction from the sequential slices in each of the excited sub-volumes, and performing slice direction encoding on the slices selected for encoding, and
acquire magnetic resonance signals from the encoded sub-volumes; and
a data processor configured to reconstruct the acquired magnetic resonance signals into image data corresponding to each of the sequential slices in each of the encoded sub-volumes.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein the sequential slices are selected such that (1+v×fa)-th slices are selected from the sequential slices in each of the excited sub-volumes, wherein fa is a factor for satisfying the condition and is an integer greater than or equal to 1, and v is an integer that increases by 1 beginning from 0 until a value of (1+v×fa) reaches a number of the sequential slices in each of the excited sub-volumes.

14. The system of claim 12 , wherein the data processor is further configured to:
reconstruct the acquired magnetic resonance signals into image data corresponding to each of the encoded sub-volumes; and
reconstruct the image data corresponding to each of the encoded sub-volumes into image data corresponding to each of the sequential slices in each of the encoded sub-volumes.

15. The system of claim 14 , wherein the reconstructing of the acquired magnetic resonance signals into the image data corresponding to each of the encoded sub-volumes and the reconstructing of the image data corresponding to each of the encoded sub-volumes into the image data corresponding to each of the sequential slices in each of the encoded sub-volumes are performed based on channel information of multi-channel receiver coils configured to acquire the magnetic resonance signals.

Assignees

• Samsung Electronics Co Ltd

Inventors

• Kim Young Beom
• Ryu Yeunchul
• Yi Jaemock

Classifications

• A61B5/055 Primary

  involving electronic [EMR] or nuclear [NMR] magnetic resonance, e.g. magnetic resonance imaging · CPC title

• G01R33/5611

  Parallel magnetic resonance imaging, e.g. sensitivity encoding [SENSE], simultaneous acquisition of spatial harmonics [SMASH], unaliasing by Fourier encoding of the overlaps using the temporal dimension [UNFOLD], k-t-broad-use linear acquisition speed-up technique [k-t-BLAST], k-t-SENSE (structural details of arrays of sub-coils G01R33/3415) · CPC title

• G01R33/4835 Primary

  of multiple slices · CPC title