Patent ID: 6946839

Claim:
A method for magnetic resonance imaging comprising the steps of: (a) emitting a radio-frequency excitation pulse for exciting nuclear spins in an object, the excited nuclear spins causing magnetic resonance signals to be emitted; (b) selecting a slice in said object in which said nuclear spins are excited by simultaneously activating a slice selection gradient during emission of said radio-frequency excitation pulse; (c) activating a pulse series comprising a plurality of refocusing pulses; (d) during each refocusing pulse, activating a slice selection gradient pulse; and (e) activating alternating readout gradient pulse series respectively between successive ones of said refocusing pulses, and activating a dephasing pulse immediately before each readout gradient pulse series and activating a re-phasing pulse immediately after readout gradient pulse series for producing an offset in a readout direction for causing each readout gradient pulse series to scan a portion of k-space in a k x direction in a serpentine-like path, said serpentine-like path in each part of k-space being produced by activating short phase-coding gradient pulses during each zero point of the associated readout gradient pulse series.