Stefan Fischer1, Mark Schuppert1, Maxim Terekhov1, Stefan Weber1, Andrei L. Kleschyov2, Laura Maria Schreiber1
1Section of Medical Physics, Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany; 2II-Medical Department, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany
In this study a dedicated rabbit heart/aorta 16-channel receive array was developed to achieve high SNR in the relevant anatomical region. A split design with two 8-ch parts was chosen. To validate the array SNR and g-factor maps were evaluated. Compared with a 15-ch knee coil the SNR of the 16-ch rabbit array was 50% higher in the center of a 2 liter bottle phantom und 2.3-fold higher in the peripheral area. The two-part design allows minimizing array-to-object distance for rabbit MRI and also simultaneously imaging of two objects with eight channels each increasing the throughput.