Abstract #1823

Eight-Channel Array Coil Optimized for Functional Imaging of Awake Monkeys at 7T

Azma Mareyam¹, James Blau¹, Jonathan Polimeni^1,2, Boris Keil^1,2, Reza Farivar^1,2, Thomas Benner^1,2, Wim Vanduffel^1,2, Lawrence L. Wald^1,3

¹A.A Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Dept. of Radiology, Massachussetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States; ²Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States; ³Division of Health Sciences & Technology, Harvard-MIT, Cambridge, MA, United States

High-field functional MRI of non-human primates provides elevated BOLD contrast but requires an optimized coil design to boost the SNR, facilitate image acceleration, and maintain mechanical and electrical stability during the awake primate experiment. We present an 8-channel receive-only coil array optimized for high-resolution whole-brain imaging of the awake primate. Imaging performance is compared with other available 3T and 7T arrays.