Patent ID: 7176689

Claim:
An MR signal reception apparatus comprising: a receiving multi-coil configured to be composed of a plurality of element coils which receive MR signals, the plurality of element coils being arranged at least two-dimensionally, the arrangement including a direction which is set to a phase encoding direction for the parallel MR imaging; and a switchover member configured to selectively switch the plurality of element coils of the receiving multi-coil into a desired combined coil mode in response to an imaging condition including information about the phase encoding direction, wherein the switchover member comprises at least one phase shifter configured to adjust a phase of the MR signals received by and outputted from the plurality of element coils; and a combiner configured to mutually combine the MR signals received by and outputted from the plurality of element coils, such that a first set of the plurality of element coils whose respective MR signals are mutually combined by the combiner are arranged along a direction which is different from the phase encoding direction in response to the combined coil mode and a second set of the plurality of element coils whose respective MR signals are mutually combined by the combiner are arranged along a direction different from the phase encoding direction in response to the combined coil mode, so that the combiner outputs a first combined MR signal from the respective MR signals of the element coils of the first set and a second combined MR signal from the respective MR signals of the element coils of the second set.