Patent ID: 9474455
Filing Date: 2016-10-25
CPC Classification: A61B,G01R

Claim Text:
1. A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) apparatus comprising: an assembly of gantry components including static and gradient magnetic field generators and at least one radio frequency (RF) coil; and an MRI control system, connected to control said gantry components, including at least one RF transmitter, at least one RF receiver and one or more computer control circuits, the MRI control system being configured to: acquire a plurality of MR images from an imaging region including a coronary artery providing a myocardium with blood without using a contrast medium, by applying a spatially selective RF excitation pulse to a region including at least a part of an ascending aorta of a heart; and generate a plurality of blood flow images of the heart based on the acquired plurality of MR images, wherein the plurality of MR images are acquired while changing, for each of the plurality of MR images, respective traveling times of the inflowing blood between each application of the spatially selective RF excitation pulse and each data acquisition so that a start time of each data acquisition is in the same cardiac time phase regardless of using the different traveling times, by changing a delay time from a synchronization signal to the spatially selective RF excitation pulse.