How do Understand MRI Pulse Sequences

I believe it will become the 'gold standard' text for people involved in MR research or applications because of its clear and concise descriptions of most aspects of MRI.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is among the most important medical imaging techniques available today. There is an installed base of approximately 15,000 MRI scanners worldwide. Each of these scanners is capable of running many different "pulse sequences", which are governed by physics and engineering principles, and implemented by software programs that control the MRI hardware. To utilize an MRI scanner to the fullest extent, a conceptual understanding of its pulse sequences is crucial. This book offers a complete guide that can help the scientists, engineers, clinicians, and technologists in the field of MRI understand and better employ their scanner.

This book is an excellent overview and reference for MRI pulse sequences. It has been recommended to me as a reference by several scientists, and anyone who works in the MRI contrast agent field should consider buying this book -- even if you are not a pulse programmer, this book will give you a much better understanding of different sequences and which one may be most appropriate for your research application. It does a good job of describing sequences in a qualitative as well as mathematical manner.

One slight problem with the book is that it is oriented towards just MRI physics, and thus if one wants to sit down at an actual scanner and try to program or implement the sequence, one might not have enough specific details about hardware-related issues (such as gradient duty cycles, RF power calibration, SAR, memory allocation, etc) to actually implement a sequence. Thus, the book is best supplemented with a review of current literature, as well as manufacturer documentation or examples of previously written pulse sequences.

I got to know this good handbook from an international conference. It was sold out in few days during the exhibition period. I strongly recommend every Bench-top NMR guy own at least one copy of it. ^__^