Means to confine the region of strong magnetic field surrounding a magnet; most commonly the use of material with high permeability (passive shielding) or by employing secondary counteracting coils outside of the primary coils (active shielding). The high permeability material can be employed in the form of a yoke immediately surrounding the magnet (self-shielding) or installed in the walls of a room as full or partial room-shielding. Unlike shielding ionizing radiation, for example, magnetic shielding can only be accomplished by forcing the unavoidable magnetic return flux through more confined areas or structures, not by absorbing it.

See also Radio Frequency Shielding Radio Frequency Shielding, and Faraday cage.

See also the related poll result: 'Most outages of your scanning system are caused by failure of'

(SR) Particular type of partial saturation pulse sequence in which the preceding pulses leave the spins in a state of saturation, so that recovery at the time of the next pulse has taken place from an initial condition of no magnetization. A rare used MRI pulse sequence that generates a predominantly proton density dependent signal, basically employing a 90° RF excitation pulse, with a very long repetition time. With this technique T1 times can be measured faster than with inversion recovery pulse sequences.
This saturation recovery sequence consists of multiple 90° radio frequency (RF) pulses with a short repetition time. A spoiler gradient pulse dephases the longitudinal magnetization that remains after the first 90° radio frequency pulse. A repetition time interval after the application of this spoiling gradient turns an additional 90° pulse the new developed longitudinal magnetization into the transverse plane, followed by recording a gradient echo.

(SAR) The Specific Absorption Rate is defined as the RF power absorbed per unit of mass of an object, and is measured in watts per kilogram (W/kg).
The SAR describes the potential for heating of the patient's tissue due to the application of the RF energy necessary to produce the MR signal. Inhomogeneity of the RF field leads to a local exposure where most of the absorbed energy is applied to one body region rather than the entire person, leading to the concept of a local SAR. Hot spots may occur in the exposed tissue, to avoid or at least minimize effects of such theoretical complications, the frequency and the power of the radio frequency irradiation should be kept at the lowest possible level. Averaging over the whole body leads to the global SAR.
It increases with field strength, radio frequency power and duty cycle, transmitter-coil type and body size. The doubling of the field strength from 1.5 Tesla (1.5T) to 3 Tesla (3T) leads to a quadrupling of SAR. In high and ultrahigh fields, some of the multiple echo, multiple-slice pulse sequences may create a higher SAR than recommended by the agencies. SAR can be reduced by lower flip angle and longer repetition times, which could potentially affect image contrast.
Normally no threatening increase in temperature could be shown. Even in high magnetic fields, the local temperature increases not more than 1°C. 2.1°C is the highest measured increase in skin temperature. Eddy currents may heat up implants and thus may cause local heating.

FDA SAR limits:

IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) SAR limits of some European countries:
All limits are averaged over 6 minutes. (For more details: IEC 60601-2-33 (2002))

In most countries standard MRI systems are limited to a maximum SAR of 4 W/kg, so most scanning in level II is impossible.
For Level I, in addition to routine monitoring, particular caution must be exercised for patients who are sensitive to temperature increases or to RF energy.
For Japan different SAR limits are valid.

Spoiled gradient echo sequences use a spoiler gradient on the slice select axis during the end module to destroy any remaining transverse magnetization after the readout gradient, which is the case for short repetition times.
As a result, only z-magnetization remains during a subsequent excitation. This types of sequences use semi-random changes in the phase of radio frequency pulses to produce a spatially independent phase shift.
Companies use different acronyms to describe certain techniques.

Different terms for these gradient echo pulse sequences:
CE-FFE-T1 Contrast Enhanced Fast Field Echo with T1 Weighting,
GFE Gradient Field Echo,
FLASH Fast Low Angle Shot,
PS Partial Saturation,
RF spoiled FAST RF Spoiled Fourier Acquired Steady State Technique,
RSSARGE Radio Frequency Spoiled Steady State Acquisition Rewound Gradient Echo
S-GRE Spoiled Gradient Echo,
SHORT Short Repetition Techniques,
SPGR Spoiled Gradient Recalled (spoiled GRASS),
STAGE T1W T1 weighted Small Tip Angle Gradient Echo,
T1-FAST T1 weighted Fourier Acquired Steady State Technique,
T1-FFE T1 weighted Fast Field Echo.
In this context, 'contrast enhanced' refers to the pulse sequence, it does not mean enhancement with a contrast agent.

Quick Overview

Zipper artifacts appear as dashed lines. There are various causes for this MRI artifact.
Most of zipper artifacts result from inhomogeneities of the magnetic field caused by interferences with radio frequency from various sources ('your radio is working in the scanner room means your shielding is not working'). Software and equipment problems can also cause zipper lines in both directions.

Scanning room door during the acquisition of images is closed, shielding is working, and all disturbing devices are removed?

See also Room Shielding, Active Shielding, Radio Frequency Shielding.