Excitation

INCORRECT. Although the process of excitation involves magnetic induction, excitation does not refer to the induction of a voltage in detection equipment.

Try again.

INCORRECT. Hmmm. That's not excitation, so much as overstimulation.

Cut down your coffee intake, and try again.

CORRECT. Excitation is simply another name for moving the net magnetisation vector (or part of it) of spin isochromats into the xy-plane. This happens by magnetic induction; the RF magnetic field induces a rotation of the net magnetisation of the sample.

The vector component M_xy precesses (and decays), creating an oscillating magnetic field and inducing a signal in our detection equipment.

You may read "excitation of the spin system"; this simply means an RF pulse has been applied. To excite only a single section—or slice—of the patient, we use another magnetic field: A gradient magnetic field.