Systems and methods of simultaneous multi-slice acquisition in magnetic resonance imaging

Abstract

A magnetic resonance (MR) acquisition acceleration method is provided. The method includes, for each acquisition of a plurality of acquisitions, generating an excitation radio frequency (RF) pulse that excites a plurality of slices, applying, to a subject by an MR system, the excitation RF pulse, and acquiring MR signals of the plurality of slices. A number of slices in the plurality of slices is not a power of two, wherein generating an excitation RF pulse further includes modulating a base excitation RF pulse with a different modulation function during each acquisition. A number of acquisitions is equal to the number of slices, and MR signals from each acquisition are algebraic combinations of MR signals of individual slices. The method also includes reconstructing MR images of individual slices based on the MR signals from the plurality of acquisitions, and outputting the reconstructed images of the individual slices.