Patent ID: 7558614

Claim:
A method for determining transmission coil-specific RF excitation pulses for respective component coils of a transmission coil array for accelerated, PPA-based, volume-selective excitation of a tissue region of a patient in a magnetic resonance tomography apparatus, said magnetic resonance tomography apparatus comprising a basic field magnet that generates a static magnetic field in the apparatus, a gradient coil system that generates gradient magnetic fields in the apparatus, said transmission coil array comprising a plurality of component coils, and a reception coil array comprising a plurality of component coils, said method comprising the steps of: (a) radiating, from a first of said component coils of said transmission coil array, a first series of volume-selective RF excitation pulses along a first transmission trajectory in transmission κ-space, said first transmission trajectory being reduced by an acceleration factor AF; (b) receiving magnetic resonance signals, produced in said tissue region of the patient in response to said first series of volume-selected RF excitation pulses, along a complete reception trajectory in reception k-space with all component coils of said reception coil array simultaneously; (c) repeating steps (a) and (b) in succession for all further of said component coils of said transmission coil array; (d) simultaneously radiating, from all of said component coils of said transmission coil array, a second series of volume-selective RF excitation pulses along a second reduced transmission trajectory in transmission κ-space; (e) receiving magnetic resonance signals, produced in said tissue region of the patient in response to said second series of volume-selective RF excitation pulses, along the same complete reception trajectory in reception k-space with all of said component coils of said reception coil array simultaneously; (f) for AF>2, repeating steps (d) and (e) until all of said reduced transmission trajectories in transmission κ-space form a complete transmission trajectory in transmission κ-space; (g) automatically electronically determining combination coefficients dependent on all of the received magnetic resonance signals; and (h) from said combination coefficients, automatically electronically calculating transmission coil-specific RF excitation pulses for the respective component coils of the transmission coil array that generate a selected excitation profile for said tissue region by simultaneous radiation of said transmission coil-specific RF excitation pulses along said reduced first transmission trajectory by multiple component coils of said transmission coil array.