Patent ID: 7627360

Claim:
An MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) apparatus comprising: imaging means for acquiring image data by performing an ASL (Arterial Spin Labeling) scan on a patient region to be imaged; storing means for storing information indicative of a relationship between a concentration of water tracer and a perfusion flow indicative of blood flow in tissue, the relationship being obtained based on a model that uses two compartments placed respectively inside and outside a flow of blood that diffuses into tissue of the region to be imaged and that takes into account temporal changes in diffusion of blood flow into the tissue; and quantifying means for quantifying perfusion in the region to be imaged by using the image data and the relationship information between the tracer concentration and the perfusion flow; wherein the quantifying means comprises: means configured to obtain a plurality of tracer amounts existing within a unit voxel which respectively correspond to each of a plurality of known flows by applying to the model representative parameters of tissue in the region to be imaged; means configured to approximate a relationship between the plurality of known flows and the plurality of tracer amounts using a polynomial expression which directly converts the tracer amounts into known flows using only coefficients of the polynomial expression as parameters; and wherein the storing means comprises means configured to store, as correspondence information, a correspondence relationship based on the polynomial expression in the form of either a table or a conversion expression.