Abstract #0424

Lattanzi R, Grant A, Ohliger M, Sodickson D

A method for evaluating the absolute SNR performance of radiofrequency detector coils for traditional or parallel imaging is described. Measured SNR is expressed pixel by pixel as a fraction of the ultimate achievable SNR (computed using electrodynamic considerations for a given object and image plane geometry, and scaled to account for pulse-sequence-specific factors). In this work, coil performance maps were generated as a function of parallel imaging acceleration factor for a linear 8-element array atop a cylindrical phantom. For this array, a maximum of nearly 45% of optimal performance for unaccelerated imaging and nearly 60% for accelerated imaging was observed.