Patent ID: 7489962

Claim:
A magnetic resonance imaging method comprising: dividing k space into a central region disposed at k space center and one or more annular surrounding regions having increasing distances from k space center, the one or more annular surrounding regions including an outermost surrounding region having a largest distance from k space center; acquiring k space samples in the central region; subsequent to the acquiring of k space samples in the central region, acquiring k space samples in the one or more annular surrounding regions, the k space samples in the outermost surrounding region being acquired last, the acquiring of k space samples in at least the outermost surrounding region using a row by row data acquisition ordering in which each row of k space samples acquired in the outermost surrounding region, together with selected already acquired k space data from the regions other than the outermost surrounding region, forms a completed data set for reconstructing an image plane; and reconstructing each completed data set into a reconstructed image plane without waiting for all k space samples in the outermost surrounding region to be acquired such that the reconstructing occurs at least partially concurrently with the acquiring wherein each of the above steps is performed on a magnetic resonance imaging scanner.