Ace the MRI Challenge 2026 – Dive Into the World of Magnetic Magic!

When the flip angle is reduced in MRI, there is a change in the amount of longitudinal magnetization that is available for imaging, which impacts the contrast of the resulting images. A lower flip angle means that less of the longitudinal magnetization is flipped into the transverse plane for signal generation. Consequently, this leads to a smaller difference in signal intensity based on T1 relaxation times, as there is less T1 information being utilized to differentiate between different tissues.

At reduced flip angles, T1 effects are minimized because the longitudinal magnetization, which is responsible for T1 contrast, does not have enough time or intensity to produce contrasting signals. This results in less differentiation between tissues in terms of T1 effects, thereby reducing the overall T1 information available for the image contrast.