X-nuclei MRS for human application faces two challenges: high RF power requirement (thus, higher SAR) for achieving the same RF pulse flip angle due to a relatively lower gyromagnetic ratio, and limit of detection sensitivity (or SNR) even at high/ultrahigh field. In this work, we report that by incorporating ultra-high dielectric constant (uHDC) material into the RF head volume coil, huge RF transmit power reduction was observed in the regions near the uHDC pads for 31P MRSI at 7T. Concomitantly, the B1 efficiency for acquiring the spectra was increased about 100%. Strikingly, up to ~20% denoising effect was also observed with the uHDC material. Our results demonstrated that incorporating uHDC with RF coil can significantly boost SNR and reduce SAR in X-nuclei MRS applications; such improvements are beyond the gains obtainable at very high field strength magnet that has approached to its technologic limits.
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