Patent ID: 7412278

Claim:
A method for simulation of an electric stimulation of a nerve system of a subject to be examined generated by a rate of change of gradient fields generated by one or more gradient coils of a magnetic resonance imaging system, wherein a gradient signal is filtered with a filtering function, a stimulation signal is derived from said filtered gradient signal, and said stimulation signal is compared with a predetermined stimulation threshold value for generating an indicator signal if said threshold value is exceeded, the method comprising: spatially masking a space of the electric field by a mask derived from a preview MR image of the subject's body within the gradient coil, calculating time dependent and spatially dependent electric fields as defined by a scanning sequence and the gradient coil properties within the mask, vector combining said calculated electric field components from each gradient coil axis resulting in a temporal diagram of the total electric field at various spatial locations within the gradient coil, calculating a stimulation probability at each location from said temporal diagram and said stimulation signal, comparing said stimulation probability with a stimulation threshold value at each location within the gradient coil; and providing a warning of likely stimulation based on the comparing.