A magnetic resonance imaging apparatus comprises a scanning unit for performing a pulse sequence PS including a MT (Magnetization Transfer) pulse b for lessening signals from the cerebral parenchyma (white matter and gray matter). The scanning unit performs the pulse sequence PS in periods of time P1 and P3 in the pulse sequence PS so that the MT pulse b is applied every repetition time TR, while it performs the pulse sequence PS in a period of time P2 in the pulse sequence PS so that no MT pulse b is applied.

The present disclosure is related to systems and methods for image processing. The method includes obtaining an original image. The original image includes at least one blood vessel region and at least one scalp region. The method includes determining an intermediate image by removing the at least one scalp region from the original image. The method includes generating at least one target image by performing a maximum intensity projection operation on the intermediate image. The at least one target image represents the at least one blood vessel region in the original image.

A system for acquiring an image in which deterioration of vascular signals due to improved water-fat swap is provided. The system includes a magnetic resonance imaging device, which receives an out-of-phase signal and in-phase signal from an imaging site including a blood vessel. The system also includes a processor that processes a digital signal including data representing the out-of-phase signal and in-phase signal. The processor executes an operation including: generating a water image Wa based on the digital signal; and adding a signal intensity lI.sub.inl of the out-of-phase signal and a signal intensity of the in-phase signal to the water image Wa to generate a vascular image representing the blood vessel.

A method for acquiring an image volume using a magnetic resonance imaging device includes performing an acquisition process to acquire a first dataset corresponding to a first portion of an anatomical region of interest at a first slice resolution, wherein the first dataset comprises a first plurality of three-dimensional slabs or a first plurality of two-dimensional slice regions. Additionally, one or more additional acquisition processes is performed to acquire a second dataset corresponding to a second portion of the anatomical region of interest at a second slice resolution that is lower or higher than the first slice resolution, wherein the second dataset comprises a second plurality of three-dimensional slabs or a second plurality of two-dimensional slice regions. Once the datasets are acquired, a reconstruction process is applied to jointly reconstruct the first dataset and the second dataset as a single consistent volume.

Systems and methods are disclosed for assessing the quality of medical images of at least a portion of a patient's anatomy, using a computer system. One method includes receiving one or more images of at least a portion of the patient's anatomy; determining, using a processor of the computer system, one or more image properties of the received images; performing, using a processor of the computer system, anatomic localization or modeling of at least a portion of the patient's anatomy based on the received images; obtaining an identification of one or more image characteristics associated with an anatomic feature of the patient's anatomy based on the anatomic localization or modeling; and calculating, using a processor of the computer system, an image quality score based on the one or more image properties and the one or more image characteristics.

The present disclosure is directed to methods and systems for fusing Phase Contrast Angiography (PCA) with anatomic images to create a perforator PCA (pPCA) data set. In the pPCA) method, vascular and anatomic information may be provided by different MRI sequences. A four-point acquisition scheme may be used for 3D PCA acquisition of vascular images. Anatomical MRI images are acquired and may be enhanced with image post-processing techniques. The vascular and anatomical images may be combined with image fusion to create a high resolution map of abdominal wall vasculature. This high resolution map visualizes not only the size and location of the DIEP perforators, but also their relationship with surrounding tissue, and the blood flow velocity within them. As such, the fused pPCA image has substantially higher SNR and CNR than CTA image of the same slice thickness.

An IR pulse is applied to a tag region B that is disposed at the upstream side of the ascending aorta relative to a tag region A at a timing with a second predetermined delay time TD2 (for example, 600 ms) from the application time of an IR pulse to the tag region A to thereby perform tagging. By this tagging, it is possible to suppress the MR signals derived from the substantial portions and the blood within the tag region B. Subsequently, an imaging scan is performed after a predetermined time lapse TIA (for example, 1200 ms) from the application time of the IR pulse to the tag region A or after a predetermined time lapse TIB (for example, 600 ms) from the application time of the IR pulse to the tag region B.

According to one embodiment, an image processing apparatus includes a storage unit configured to store data of a series of slice images associated with a region including a target region of an object, a first rest period specifying unit configured to specify a first rest period based on a change between images of the series of slice images, and a second rest period specifying unit configured to specify a second rest period shorter than the first rest period by tracking the target region on a plurality of slice images corresponding to the specified first rest period or a rest period enlarged from the first rest period.

Described here are systems and methods for reconstructing images from multi-level sampled data acquired with a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system. An alternating direction method-of multipliers (ADMM) strategy is implemented for sparse reconstruction of multi-level sampled data, and which decomposes the reconstruction problem into simpler subproblems and enables certain operations to be computed once offline and recycled during the reconstruction process rather than repeated at every iteration. As one example, the described reconstruction technique enables sparse reconstruction of 3D contrast-enhanced MR angiogram time-series in just several minutes rather than the several hours previously required.

Described here are systems and methods for generating quantitative perfusion parameter maps based on different longitudinal relaxation parameter maps that are produced from images acquired using non-selective and selective magnetic resonance imaging (“MRI”) data acquisition techniques.