Statistical Analysis of fMRI Data- 2: Basic MR Physics

• longitudinal relaxation: T1, spin return to parallel state (63%)
• transverse Relaxation: T2, loss of phase coherence (37%)
• TR: how often we excite the nuclei
• TE: how soon after excitation we begin data collection
  $M_{0}(1-e^{\frac{-TR}{T_{1}}})e^{\frac{-TE}{T_{2}}}$

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long TR+ long TE = T2 image $M_{0}e^{\frac{-TE}{T_{2}}}$
long TR+ short TE= Proton Density image $M_{0}$
short TR + short TE = T1 image $M_{0}(1-e^{\frac{-TR}{T_{1}}})$