Tamer
1Departments of Bioengineering and Radiology,
Univeristy of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States; 2Siemens
Medical Solutions; 3Department of Bioengineering, University of
Pittsburgh; 4Department of Radiology, University of Pittsburgh
Several
major obstacles have dampened the enthusiasm for widespread implementation of
parallel transmission methods for ultrahigh field imaging including: 1) the need for accurate B1+ field mapping,
2) coil and subject dependent increases in local/global SAR, and 3) concerns
regarding the unclear RF safety assurance of the PTX experiment due to
inappropriate electromagnetic models for the estimation of the SAR at
ultra-high. The work aims at
alleviating these issues through the extension of the 4-port Tic Tac Toe coil
to a more elaborate (covers the whole head volume,) 8-20 Tx channel, subject
insensitive array for imaging at ultra high fields.