Patent ID: 7567081

Claim:
A method of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) within a MRI apparatus comprising: providing a non-balanced (nb) steady state free precession (SSFP) protocol in which spins are in steady-state while the imaging gradient itself is non-balanced wherein spins are dephased so that signal(s) are suppressed in an MRI image, subjecting material having magnetic susceptibility to said non-balanced SSFP protocol wherein said material causes a local magnetic field distortion generating local field gradients, wherein said local field gradients generated from said material compensate for said dephased spins of the nb-SSFP locally so that said dephased spins of the nb-SSFP are rephrased in order to provide a local signal from the material having magnetic susceptibility which is utilized in generating an MRI image from the MRI apparatus.