Patent ID: 9664758
Date: 2017-05-30
CPC Classifications: G01R

Claim:
1. A method to generate multiple magnetic resonance (MR) images of an examination subject, comprising: operating an MR data acquisition unit, in which said examination is situated, according to a multi-echo MR data acquisition sequence to acquire raw MR data from the examination subject; entering said raw MR data acquired from the examination subject into an electronic memory organized as k-space comprising a plurality of rectangular k-space segments each comprising a plurality of k-space lines along which said raw MR data are entered; by operating said MR data acquisition unit with said multi-echo MR data acquisition sequence, producing, for each k-space line, a first gradient echo at a first echo point in time and a second gradient echo at a later second echo point in time; operating said data acquisition unit with said multi-echo MR data acquisition sequence by, for each k-space line, radiating a radio-frequency pulse that manipulates a transverse magnetization of nuclear spins in the examination subject, activating a phase encoding gradient field that phase codes the raw MR data of the respective k-space line, activating a first readout gradient field and a second readout gradient field that, in combination with the manipulation of the transverse magnetization produced by said radio-frequency pulse, respectively produce said first gradient echo and said second gradient echo, and reading out raw MR data, for the respective k-space line, of said first gradient echo during activation of said first readout gradient field in a time interval around said first echo point in time, and reading out raw MR data, for the respective k-space line, of said second gradient echo during activation of said second readout gradient field in a time interval around said second echo point in time; orienting said rectangular k-space segments in k-space with a longer side of each k-space segment oriented along a direction in the respective k-space segment that is defined by said phase encoding gradient field; orienting said rectangular k-space segments in k-space with a short side of each k-space segment oriented along a direction of the respective k-space segment that is defined by said readout gradient fields; and in a processor having access to said memory, reconstructing individual MR images from raw data in said k-space acquired at identical echo times, respectively.