(AFP) Adiabatic fast passage is a NMR technique of producing rotation of the macroscopic magnetization vector by shifting the frequency of RF energy pulses (or the strength of the magnetic field) through resonance (the Larmor frequency) in a time short compared to the relaxation times. Particularly used for inversion of the spins between high and low energy states with an excess of spins in the higher energy level. A continuous wave NMR technique used in e.g., MR spectroscopy.

(bFFE) A FFE sequence using a balanced gradient waveform. A balanced sequence starts out with a RF pulse of 90° or less and the spins in the steady state. Before the next TR in the slice phase and frequency encoding, gradients are balanced so their net value is zero. Now the spins are prepared to accept the next RF pulse, and their corresponding signal can become part of the new transverse magnetization. Since the balanced gradients maintain the transverse and longitudinal magnetization, the result is, that both T1 and T2 contrast are represented in the image. This pulse sequence produces images with increased signal from fluid, along with retaining T1 weighted tissue contrast. Because this form of sequence is extremely dependent on field homogeneity, it is essential to run a shimming prior the acquisition. A fully balanced (refocused) sequence would yield higher signal, especially for tissues with long T2 relaxation times.

See Steady State Free Precession and Gradient Echo Sequence.

(FAIR) In this sequence 2 inversion recovery images are acquired, one with a nonselective and the other with a slice selective inversion pulse. The z-magnetization in the first sequence is independent of flow. Inflowing spins give z-magnetization from second pulse. A major signal loss in FAIR is the T1 relaxation of tagged blood in transit to the imaging slice. Sharper edges of the inversion pulse give narrow spacing between the inversion edge and the 1st slice because reduced transit time gives lower T1 relaxation induced signal loss. The difference of the images in a consequence contains information proportional to flow (blood partition coefficient). Standard adiabatic inversion RF pulse does not have good slice-profile, because of power/SAR limitation. A c-shaped frequency offset corrected inversion (FOCI) RF pulse can help to increase the signal.
Perfusion imaging, e.g. myocardial, using tissue water as endogenous contrast is suggested.

(FID) A free induction decay curve is generated as excited nuclei relax. The amplitude of the FID signal becomes smaller over time as net magnetization returns to equilibrium. If transverse magnetization of the spins is produced, e.g. by a 90° pulse, a transient MR signal will result that will decay toward zero with a characteristic time constant T2 (or T2*); this decaying signal is the free induction decay.
The signal peaks of the echoes fall onto this T2 decay curve, while at each echo the signals arise and decay with T2*. The typical T2 relaxation times being of the order of 5-200 ms in the human body. The first part of the FID is not observable (named the 'receiver dead time') caused by residual effects of the powerful exciting radio frequency pulse on the electronics of the receiver.

(FLAIR) Fluid attenuation inversion recovery is a special inversion recovery sequence with long TI to remove the effects of fluid from the resulting images. The TI time of the FLAIR pulse sequence is adjusted to the relaxation time of the component that should be suppressed. For fluid suppression the inversion time (long TI) is set to the zero crossing point of fluid, resulting in the signal being 'erased'.
Lesions that are normally covered by bright fluid signals using conventional T2 contrast are made visible by the dark fluid technique FLAIR is an important technique for the differentiation of brain and spine lesions.

See also Inversion Recovery.