Patent ID: 7375524

Claim:
A magnetic resonance imaging system including: a magnetic resonance imaging scanner configured to encode magnetic resonance in at least a readout direction, the encoding including applying a read magnetic field gradient profile; a plurality of receive coils for receiving magnetic resonance signals; a sampling means for sampling the receive coils during application of the read magnetic field gradient profile in order to acquire samples from each receive coil at a measurement sampling rate, wherein the sampling means undersamples the receive coils at a reduced sampling rate such that the intermediate reconstructed images include aliasing in at least the readout direction; a means for reconstructing the magnetic resonance samples acquired from each coil into a corresponding intermediate reconstructed image, the intermediate reconstructed images having a measurement field of view and a measurement spatial resolution in the readout direction; and a means for combining the intermediate reconstructed images based on coil sensitivity factors in order to produce a final reconstructed image having a final field of view in the readout direction that is increased over the measurement field of view in the readout direction.