In a steady state free precession (SFP) magnetic resonance imaging method, after each pulse (1) of an applied train of phase coherent RF pulses which excite magnetic resonance spins in a region of a body being examined, magnetic field gradients (7, 11) are applied to encode the excited spins and the encoded spins are detected, and at least one further magnetic field gradient (15, 17) is then applied to rephase the spins by the time the next RF pulse is applied.The method finds particular application where the applied encoding gradients serve to encode the spins in such a manner as to allow a multi-dimensional Fourier transform technique to be used to reconstruct an image.The method allows more rapid data acquisition than has been possible hitherto in SFP imaging.
Nuclear magnetic resonance imaging.