In a method and magnetic resonance imaging apparatus wherein magnetic
resonance signals are simultaneously received from an examination subject
by multiple reception coils, a single, uninterrupted pulse sequence is
executed which includes reference scans of the subject with a first
sequence kernel that is optimized for coil sensitivity calibration,
immediately followed by a series of accelerated image scans with a second
sequence kernel, different from the first sequence kernel, that is
optimized for imaging. Coil sensitivity maps for the respective coils are
calculated from the data acquired in the reference scans, and an image of
the subject is reconstructed by operating on the image data with a
parallel reconstruction algorithm employing the calculated coil
sensitivity maps.
