Abstract #2043

A Brain Resting State FMRI Connectivity Study Using High-Temperature Superconducting RF Coil Platform in a 7T Rat MRI Imager

Yen-Liang Liu¹,², Yun-An Huang¹, In-Tsang Lin¹, Hong-Chang Yang³, Jyh-Horng Chen¹,⁴

¹Interdisciplinary MRI/MRS Lab, Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; ²Graduate Institute of Biomedical Electronics and Bioinformatics, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; ³Department of Physics, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; ⁴Graduate Institute of Biomedical Electronics and Bioinformatics, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

A 4cm high-temperature superconducting (HTS) radio-frequency (RF) coil platform was applied on the fMRI study in a 7T MRI system. Not only the image SNR but also the functional SNR were improved due to reduced thermal noise. Compared to a similar home-made copper RF coil, this study obtained an approximate twice SNR gain in both fast spin echo and echo planar imaging (EPI) sequences. The time-series analysis of the resting state fMRI study showed that not only the functional SNR was raised but also the functional connectivity was improved.