Patent ID: 7061242

Claim:
An MRI apparatus comprising: means for generating a static magnetic field in a vertical direction; means for generating an exciting RF pulse to be applied to an object to be examined that is placed in the static magnetic field; means for generating gradient magnetic fields to be applied to the object that is placed in the static magnetic field; and a reception coil having a plurality of sub-coils for detecting nuclear magnetic resonance signals generated from the object, wherein said sub-coils include a plurality of surface coils arranged in the vicinity of the surface of the object within a plane perpendicular to the static magnetic field direction and a plurality of loop coils arranged on the periphery of the object within a plane including an axis parallel to the static magnetic field direction, two or more of said sub-coils have nonuniform sensitivity distributions along either of two axes determining an arbitrary imaging section in the object, and at least one of said sub-coils has a sensitivity at an arbitrary position in the arbitrary imaging section.