Phased Array Imaging in Mouse Hearts Using an 8-Channel Phased Array Coil at 9.4 Tesla

Jurgen E. Schneider¹, Hannah Barnes¹, Matthias Mller², Stefan Neubauer¹, Titus Lanz²

While the application of coil arrays and parallel imaging techniques are common in clinical cardiac MR, this technology is still in its infancy in ultra-high field, small-bore MR systems. This work presents first results for CMR in mice in vivo at 9.4T using a volume-coil-transmit/8-channel-volume-receive-array combination, and performs signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) comparisons for different regions of heart as a function of selected coil-elements. It was found that all elements still add constructively to the SNR, although the main contribution to the image arises from the anterior coil elements as expected due to the off-centred positioning of the mice.