Patent ID: 8188735

Claim:
An apparatus compatible with magnetic resonance imaging, comprising: a processor; a memory; a set of logics; and an interface to connect the processor, the memory, and the set of the logics the set of logics comprising: a first logic that produces a T1-insensitive steady state imaging (TOSSI) pulse sequence portion having at least three inversion pulses, where the spacing between the at least three inversion pulses is not equal; a second logic that produces a non-inverting, non-TOSSI pulse sequence portion, where the non-inverting, non-TOSSI pulse sequence portion does not include inversion pulses associated with a TOSSI pulse sequence, and where imaging blocks are not interwoven between inversion pulses of the TOSSI sequence; and a combination logic that provides a single combined pulse sequence comprising: an initial portion of the single combined pulse sequence that is the initial TOSSI pulse sequence portion that is to be applied until the magnetization is in an aligned state; and a subsequent portion that is the non-TOSSI pulse sequence portion that is to be applied when the magnetization is in the aligned state, where the initial TOSSI pulse sequence portion is followed directly by the non-TOSSI pulse sequence portion in the single combined pulse sequence, and where the apparatus provides the single combined pulse sequence to a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) apparatus.