MRI with fat suppression using fat decoupling RF during pre-sequence shimming

1. A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system comprising:

an MRI gantry including a static magnet structure, controllable gradient magnet structures and at least one radio frequency (RF) coil for transmitting and receiving RF signals to and from an imaging volume;

control circuits configured to control gradient magnetic fields generated by said gradient magnet structures, to transmit/receive RF signals to and from said at least one RF coil and to process RF signals received during a diagnostic MRI scan to produce displayable images of structures located within said imaging volume,

said control circuits being configured to include at least one preparatory fat decoupling RF pulse as part of a patient shimming sequence effected prior to said diagnostic MRI scan sequence.

2. The MRI system of claim 1 , wherein:

said at least one fat decoupling RF pulse occurs prior to an RF nutation pulse used to thereafter gather RF spectral response data used for shimming detected non-uniformities in static and/or gradient magnetic fields within a region of interest (ROI) of patient tissue to be imaged.

3. The MRI system of claim 1 wherein:

said control circuits are configured to include said at least one preparatory fat decoupling pulse as a preparatory part of each of plural ROI shimming pre-scan sequences.

4. The MRI system of claim 1 , wherein:

said at least one fat decoupling RF pulse occurs prior to an RF nutation pulse used to gather RF response data used for shimming detected non-uniformities in RF fields associated with said at least one RF coil.

5. The MRI system of claim 1 , wherein said fat decoupling RF pulse is configured to decouple fat protons in a region of interest (ROI) of patient tissue to be imaged and thus effectively sharpen a collective resonant Larmor frequency peak for said fat protons.

6. The MRI system of claim 1 , wherein said control circuits are configured to perform a shimming preparatory sequence which produces at least one fat resonant frequency peak that is not substantially 3.5 ppm away from a resonant peak for water protons.

7. The MRI system of claim 6 , wherein said at least one resonant fat resonant frequency peak is used to determine and apply a respectively corresponding calculated time to inversion (TI) for fat protons in a polarity alternated spectral and spatial acquisition (PASTA) sequence.

8. The MRI system of claim 7 , wherein said at least one resonant fat frequency peak is reduced by applying a compensating different TI in the PASTA acquisition sequence so as to generate an opposingly phased and thus at least partially cancelling fat signal response.

9. A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) method comprising:

using an MRI gantry including a static magnet structure, controllable gradient magnet structures and at least one radio frequency (RF) coil for transmitting and receiving RF signals to and from an imaging volume;

controlling gradient magnetic fields generated by said gradient magnet structures, and transmitting/receiving RF signals to and from said at least one RF coil and to process RF signals received during a diagnostic MRI scan to produce displayable images of structures located within said imaging volume, and

including at least one preparatory fat decoupling RF pulse as part of a patient shimming sequence effected prior to said diagnostic MRI scan sequence.

10. The MRI method of claim 9 , wherein:

said at least one fat decoupling RF pulse occurs prior to an RF nutation pulse used to thereafter gather RF spectral response data used for shimming detected non-uniformities in static and/or gradient magnetic fields within a region of interest (ROI) of patient tissue to be imaged.

11. The MRI system of claim 9 , wherein:

said at least one preparatory fat decoupling pulse is included as a preparatory part of each of plural ROI shimming pre-scan sequences.

12. The MRI method of claim 9 , wherein:

said at least one fat decoupling RF pulse occurs prior to an RF nutation pulse used to gather RF response data used for shimming detected non-uniformities in RF fields associated with said at least one RF coil.

13. The MRI method of claim 9 , wherein said fat decoupling RF pulse is configured to decouple fat protons in a region of interest (ROI) of patient tissue to be imaged and thus effectively sharpen a collective resonant Larmor frequency peak for said fat protons.

14. The MRI method of claim 9 , wherein said shimming preparatory sequence produces at least one fat resonant frequency peak that is not substantially 3.5 ppm away from a resonant peak for water protons.

15. The MRI method of claim 14 , wherein said at least one resonant fat resonant frequency peak is used to determine and apply a respectively corresponding calculated time to inversion (TI) for fat protons in a polarity alternated spectral and spatial acquisition (PASTA) sequence.

16. The MRI method of claim 15 , wherein said at least one resonant fat frequency peak is reduced by applying a compensating different TI in the PASTA acquisition sequence so as to generate an opposingly phased and thus at least partially cancelling fat signal response.

17. A non-transient computer program storage medium storing executable computer program control instructions which, when executed by at least one computer of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system effects the method of claim 9 .