Patent ID: 8570039

Claim:
A method for phase-sensitive flow measurement of a volume segment of an examination subject by magnetic resonance, comprising the steps of: operating a magnetic resonance data acquisition unit, having a data acquisition coordinate system comprising three orthogonal spatial directions, in which a patient is located, to excite nuclear spins in a predetermined volume of the examination subject that comprises a flow therein, and thereby causing emission of magnetic resonance signals from the volume; operating said magnetic resonance data acquisition unit to generate imaging magnetic field gradients with an orientation that spatially encodes said magnetic resonance signals along said three orthogonal spatial directions; operating said magnetic resonance data acquisition unit to phase code flow information, representing the flow in the volume, by, in successive respective steps, superimposing a first flow information phase coding gradient and a second flow information phase coding gradient and a third flow information phase coding gradient on said imaging magnetic field gradients, said first flow information phase coding gradient being effective only in a first direction of said spatial directions, said second flow information phase coding gradient being effective only in a second direction of said spatial directions, and said third flow information phase coding gradient being effective only in a third direction of said spatial directions; in said magnetic resonance data acquisition unit, reading out said spatially encoded magnetic resonance signals and said phase encoded flow information from said volume, to obtain magnetic resonance data; and supplying said magnetic resonance data and said flow information to a computerized processor and, in said computerized processor, generating image data from said magnetic resonance data that represent an image of said volume with said flow information, and making said image data available as a data file at an output of said processor.