An Optically Detunable Coil for Improved Self Gating in Small Animals

Matthias Korn¹, Reiner Umathum¹, Jessica Schulz^1,2, Axel Joachim Krafft¹, Wolfhard Semmler¹, Michael Bock¹

Physiological motion correction using MR-signals (self gating) has become a widely used method. However in small animal MRI the acquisition of motion dependent signals can be challenging. In this work a hardware-device, consisting of an inductively coupled coil that can be dynamically detuned by an optical trigger signal, is presented. Only during acquisition of the gating signal the coil is tuned and therefore enhances the gating signal while the over all image remains homogeneous. Experiments on mice are shown where the self gating signal was amplified by a factor of 1.7 to 2.8.