MRI Pulse Sequences: Physics, Methods and Clinical Applications

This book presents MRI pulse sequences using a simple and easy to understand approach. The use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is growing exponentially, in part because of the excellent anatomic and pathologic detail provided by the modality and recent technologic advances that have led to faster acquisition times. Radiology residents are now introduced in their 1st year of training to the MR pulse sequences routinely used in clinical imaging, including various spin-echo, gradient-echo, inversion-recovery, echo-planar imaging, and MR angiographic sequences. In this book, expert authors describe the physical basis of the most common MR pulse sequences routinely used in clinical MRI. The complexity of MRI pulse sequences requires expert knowledge about the underlying physics and contrast mechanisms to select from the wide range of available applications and protocols. The pulse sequences feature high versatility concerning the generation of different tissue contrasts using different sequences of RF and magnetic field gradient events. To enhance understanding, explanation of the physical principles will be simplified, and to highlight their practical relevance, clinical examples will be interspersed throughout the book. Several roadblocks still slow the pace of progress, particularly inefficient education of MR researchers, and lack of harmonization of approaches that limits the understanding, development, and application of pulse sequences among multiple clinical and research groups. With the help of this book, these limitations are addressed by providing a comprehensive collection of chapters on MRI pulse sequence methods that will serve as a foundational resource for application of these methods on clinical MRI. This is an ideal guide for radiologists, residents, physicists, researchers, students, post-doctoral fellows and trainees working with MRI.