Magnetic resonance imaging apparatus

A magnetic resonance (MR) imaging apparatus comprising:

• gradient magnetic field generators, at least one radio frequency (RF) coil coupled to an imaging volume, transmitting and receiving units for the at least one RF coil, and a computer system connected to control said gradient magnetic field generators and said RF coil to acquire and process MR signals from patient tissue disposed in said imaging volume, said computer system being configured to
• repeat an MR imaging scan on a first organ of a patient,
• detect displacement of a second organ of the patient by executing a MR probe scan immediately before each of the MR imaging scans,
• displace an imaging range for each of the MR imaging scans based on the detected displacement of the second organ,
• before each said MR probe scan, generate a series of slice images by executing a preliminary MR scan which repeatedly images a region including the first organ using electrocardiogram (ECG) gating,
• specify a first rest period in which a variation in position of the second organ falls within a predetermined range in a cardiac cycle, by using the series of slice images,
• specify, after specifying the first rest period, a second rest period of the second organ by tracking movement of the second organ only within a local range including the second organ for a plurality of slice images of the series of slice images, wherein the plurality of slice images corresponds to the first rest period or a rest period enlarged from the first rest period, and the second rest period is included in the first rest period or the rest period enlarged from the first rest period, and
• reconstruct an image based on MR data acquired using said MR imaging scan in the second rest period.

An image processing apparatus comprising:

• a data storage configured to store data of a series of slice images of a region including a target region of a patient, the series of slice images being acquired by a preliminary magnetic resonance (MR) scan executed in a MR imaging apparatus;
• a computer system connected to said data storage to access data within said data storage and configured to:
• specify a first rest period based on a change in the region between images of the series of slice images;
• specify, after specifying the first rest period, a second rest period shorter than the first rest period by tracking only the target region on a plurality of said slice images corresponding to the specified first rest period or a rest period enlarged from the first rest period, and the second rest period is included in the first rest period or the rest period enlarged from the first rest period;
• and
• control the MR imaging apparatus to perform a main MR scan of the target region during the second rest period to acquire MR data.