Abstract #0023

Fan X, Zamora M, Karczmar G, Markiewicz E, Haque M, Roman B

An open birdcage coil was built to perform cardiac MR imaging of the mouse at 4.7T. Although the open design greatly benefits animal placement and physiological measurements, it was not clear how this design would compare with more widely implemented coil designs. Therefore, the quality of images acquired from an open birdcage coil were compared with those from a similar sized single loop surface coil and a 3.8 cm birdcage coil. The results demonstrate that the open birdcage coil provides greater sensitivity than the volume coil and higher signal/contrast to noise ratio and B1 homogeneity than the single loop surface coil.