Patent ID: 7328054

Claim:
A method for producing a perfusion image with an MRI system, the steps comprising: a) repeatedly applying an RF tagging pulse with the MRI system to spins flowing into an image slice and modulating the flip angle of the RF tagging pulse in accordance with a tagging pattern over a modulation time period; b) acquiring a series of time course MR image data sets by performing imaging pulse sequences with the MRI system over a time period that includes the modulation time period; c) reconstructing from the image data sets a corresponding set of time course images having voxel vectors which indicate the variations in NMR signal at corresponding image slice voxels over the acquisition time period; d) detecting perfusion by identifying voxel vectors having variations in NMR signal which correspond to the tagging pattern; and e) producing a perfusion image in which perfusion is indicated at the identified voxels.