Intensity dependence of flow signal in slice selective velocity measurements

The quantitative determination of flow velocities using inflow-outflow techniques require slice selective excitation pulses. The intensity-velocity relationship for such methods is shown to be such that flow velocities estimated using techniques which rely on an absolute calibration of the measured intensity are sensitive to the details of the slice profile of the excited material. This can cause errors when the estimation of flow velocities is made from the image intensity. A method which provides a measure of the flow velocities and which relies only on relative variations in intensity is examined and shown to be insensitive to details of the slice profile.