Coil Combination of CSI Data Based on Reference Images at 7T

Bernhard Strasser¹, Marek Chmelik¹, Siegfried Trattnig¹, Stephan Gruber¹, Wolfgang Bogner¹

In this work the phase information obtained from a pair of gradient echo images is used for phasing CSI-data of 32 channels of a multi-channel-coil in order to sum up the signals of the coils and gain Signal to Noise Ratio compared to a Volume Coil. The additional 1.2 s measurement time is negligible. As a side benefit the resulting spectra are already correctly phased, leading to higher reproducibility, processing speed and accuracy of the fit. This method was tested in phantoms and healthy volunteers.