In order to permit the detection of a respiratory motion and an imaging synchronized with the respiration by an NMR imaging apparatus itself without any special hardware, a sequence for detecting the respiratory motion is repeated for a short time immediately before the measurement of an image signal to detect the position and speed of the respiratory motion, and a desired image signal is measured in synchronism with the detected position. Alternatively, the respiratory motion is detected immediately after the measurement of an image signal, and the measured image signal is corrected in accordance with the detected amount to obtain a desired image signal synchronized with the respiration.