Yale University

Siemens Healthcare Gmbh

Gigi Galiana

Robert Todd Constable

Markus Vester

Stefan Popescu

Peter Speier

Edgar Mueller

Edgar Müller

Jason Stockmann

Lick-Kong Tam

A magnet assembly for magnetic resonance imaging is used to generate the basic magnetic field with a strength needed to produce the steady state or equilibrium position of nuclei or nuclear spins in magnetic resonance imaging. This magnet, or a part thereof, is vibrated or tilted or otherwise periodically moved so as to change its position and thereby generate a time-varying gradient field, which is used to enter the acquired magnetic resonance signals as raw data into k-space.

Magnetic resonance imaging with spatial encoding by fast moving or vibrating magnetic field generator components

A magnetic resonance scanner has a base, a C-arm mounted on the base, the C-arm having an inner surface curved in a C-shape, the C-shape defining a plane, a magnet mounted on the inner curved surface of the C-arm, the magnet generating a basic magnetic field for magnetic resonance imaging, and a drive mechanism mechanically connected to the magnet. The drive mechanism rotates the magnet around an axis that is orthogonal to the plane so as to selectively position the magnet in at least two magnet positions that are respectively above and beneath a patient, who is situated in the C-arm along or parallel to the axis.

Resonance data acquisition scanner with rotating basic field magnet

Efficient encoding of signals in an MRI image is achieved through a combination of parallel receiver coils, and nonlinear gradient encoding that varies dynamically in such a manner as to impose a unique phase/frequency time varying signal on each pixel in the field of view. Any redundancies are designed such that they are easily resolved by the receiver coil sensitivity profiles. Since each voxel has an essentially identifiable complex temporal signal, spatial localization is easily achieved with only a single echo acquisition.

Single-echo imaging with nonlinear magnetic gradients

In a method of magnetic resonance imaging, a set of nonlinear, mutually orthogonal magnetic gradient encoding fields are sequentially and separately generated in an imaging region []. Using multiple receiver coils having nonuniform sensitivity profiles, echo data representing signal intensities in the imaging region is sequentially acquired as the magnetic gradient encoding fields are sequentially generated []. A reconstructed image of the imaging region is computed from the acquired echo data [], and the reconstructed image is then be stored and/or displayed on a display monitor [

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New Haven, CT, United States of America

Gigi Galiana