Lanette Friesen Waldner1,2, Jian X. Wang3,
Albert Chen4, Alexei Oriadov1, Matthew Fox1,5,
Brian Rutt, 1,6, Timothy Scholl5, Giles Santyr1,7,
Charles McKenzie, 12
1Imaging Research Laboratories, Robarts
Research Institute, London, ON, Canada; 2Medical Biophysics, The
University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada; 3Global Applied
Science Laboratory, GE Healthcare, London, ON, Canada; 4GE
Healthcare, Toronto, ON, Canada; 5Physics and Astronomy, The
University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada; 6Diagnostic
Radiology and Richard M Lucas Center for Imaging, Stanford University,
Stanford, CA, United States; 7Medical Imaging, The University of
Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
Imaging
with hyperpolarized agents requires extremely fast imaging techniques as the
hyperpolarized state only lasts for tens of seconds. Parallel MRI reduces
image encoding time, allowing hyperpolarized images to be acquired faster, or
at higher spatial resolution than would otherwise be possible. Using a custom
eight-element 13C array to acquire images of a rat following
injection of hyperpolarized 13C enriched pyruvic acid, we
demonstrate accelerated imaging, using self calibrated PMRI to achieve high
spatial and temporal resolutions.
These results represent the first hyperpolarized 13C PMRI
experiments conducted with a receive array with more than 4 elements.