Snapshot FLASH imaging has been applied to study the spatial and temporal spreading of thermal changes caused by a Holmium:YAG laser in patella cartilage in vitro at 7 T. The temperature dependence of the proton resonance frequency was used to demonstrate the thermal energy deposition. A series of cartilage images, with a time resolution of 512 ms and a spatial resolution of 400 x 200 microm, showed dynamic changes of the temperature-related image phase in the regions irradiated by the laser.
