Chapter 14: Relaxation Contrasts in Biomedical Magnetic Resonance Imaging

The contrasts visualized in magnetic resonance imaging are mainly due to longitudinal and transverse relaxation. The influence of relaxation times is specified after a brief description of the standard spin-echo imaging method and the corresponding image reconstruction analysis. The variation of certain experimental parameters allows the acquisition of T₁- and T₂-weighted images. The frequency-dependent effect of electron-paramagnetic contrast agents is analyzed in detail.