MRI METHOD FOR ASSIGNING INDIVIDUAL PIXELS OR VOXELS TISSUE - SPECIFIC PET ATTENUATION VALUES

A magnetic resonance (MR) system (10) generates an attenuation or density map. The system (10) includes a MR scanner (48) defining an examination volume (16) and at least one processor (54). The at least one processor (54) is programmed to control the MR scanner (48) to apply imaging sequences to the examination volume (16). In response to the imaging sequences, MR data sets of the examination volume (16) are received and analyzed to identify different tissue and/or material types found in pixels or voxels of the attenuation or density map. One or more tissue-specific and/or material-specific attenuation or density values are assigned to each pixel or voxel of the attenuation or density map based on the tissue and/or material type(s) identified as being in each pixel or voxel during the analysis of the MR data sets. In one embodiment, the tissue and/or material types are identified on the basis of a time series of MR phase images.