Patent ID: 7400148

Claim:
A magnetic resonance imaging apparatus comprising: a reception unit having a plurality of processing systems each processing a magnetic resonance signal; and a selection unit that selectively outputs a plurality of magnetic resonance signals each output from a plurality of reception coils to said plurality of processing systems, wherein said selection unit includes: a first converter that converts some of the magnetic resonance signals, to be processed, corresponding to the plurality of reception coils into signals corresponding to a plurality of effective channels set within a first frequency band and converts magnetic resonance signals corresponding to other reception coils into signals corresponding to channels set within a second frequency band different from the first frequency band; a synthesizer that synthesizes the channel-converted signals; an extractor that extracts a signal included in the first frequency band from the synthesized signals; and a divider that divides the extracted signal into magnetic resonance signals corresponding to the plurality of effective channels to output the magnetic resonance signals to said plurality of processing systems.