SAR Analysis of Parallel Transmission in Cardiac Imaging at 7T

Xiaoping Wu¹, Sebastian Schmitter¹, J. Tian¹, J. T. Vaughan¹, Kamil Ugurbil¹, P.-F. Van de Moortele¹

Recently, there has been an increasing interest in body imaging at 7T. One critical issue to be addressed in those applications is the severe transmit B1 (B1+) inhomogeneity present at such high magnetic field. Parallel transmission (pTX) shown to be able to reduce B1+ inhomogeneity holds great potential for body imaging. However, pTX at 7T involves complicated behavior of specific absorption rate (SAR) as was shown in the human brain. Here, we investigated SAR behavior of pTX when using 3D spoke RF pulses for homogenizing B1+ in cardiac imaging at 7T.