Method and apparatus for parallel magnetic resonance data acquisition

A magnetic resonance (MR) apparatus comprising:

• an MR data acquisition scanner;
• a control computer configured to operate the MR data acquisition scanner to (a) execute a first pulse sequence while an examination subject is situated in the MR data acquisition scanner, including radiating a radio-frequency (RF) excitation pulse into a target volume of the examination subject;
• said control computer being configured to operate the MR data acquisition scanner to (b) acquire echo signals, produced in the target volume by the RF excitation pulse of the first pulse sequence, and storing the echo signals, as an original measurement dataset, in a memory accessible by said control computer;
• said control computer being configured to operate the MR data acquisition scanner to (c) acquire a reference measurement dataset by executing a second pulse sequence immediately after acquisition of said echo signals of the first pulse sequence;
• said control computer being configured to repeat (a) through (c) until said original measurement dataset has reached a predetermined degree of completeness that is still incomplete according to the Nyquist criterion;
• and
• said control computer being configured to complete the original measurement dataset with said desired degree of completeness by using the acquired reference measurement dataset and a parallel acquisition technique, in order to produce a complete measurement dataset, and to make the complete measurement dataset available in electronic form from the control computer as a data file.

A non-transitory, computer-readable data storage medium encoded with programming instructions, said storage medium being loaded into a control computer of a magnetic resonance (MR) apparatus that comprises an MR data acquisition scanner, and said programming instructions causing said control computer to:

• operate the MR data acquisition scanner to (a) execute a first pulse sequence while an examination subject is situated in the MR data acquisition scanner, including radiating a radio-frequency (RF) excitation pulse into a target volume of the examination subject;
• operate the MR data acquisition scanner to (b) acquire echo signals, produced in the target volume by the RF excitation pulse of the first pulse sequence, and store the echo signals, as an original measurement dataset, in a memory;
• operate the MR data acquisition scanner to (c) acquire a reference measurement dataset by executing a second pulse sequence immediately after acquisition of said echo signals of the first pulse sequence;
• repeat (a) through (c) until said original measurement dataset has reached a predetermined degree of completeness that is still incomplete according to the Nyquist criterion;
• and
• complete the original measurement dataset with said desired degree of completeness by using the acquired reference measurement dataset and a parallel acquisition technique, in order to produce a complete measurement dataset, and make the complete measurement dataset available in electronic form from the control computer as a data file.