Thomas Janssens1, Boris Keil2, Jennifer A. McNab2, Reza Farivar2, Annelies Gerits1, 2, Jonathan R. Polimeni2, Lawrence L. Wald2, 3, Wim Vanduffel1, 2
1Laboratory for Neuro- and Psychophysiology, K.U.Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; 2A.A Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, United States; 3 Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States
Close proximity of a phased-array surface coil results in increased SNR and improved performance during accelerated imaging, two characteristics that are essential for high-resolution macaque MRI. Here, a receive-only 8-channel phased-array coil was developed and implanted on top of the skull of a monkey underneath the head fixation post. The data show a 5.4- and 3.6-fold increase in SNR in the brain periphery compared to, respectively, an external single and 4-channel coil. Even for very high resolutions, high SNR and image quality in anatomical, functional, and diffusion images was obtained, indicating the advantage of an implanted phased-array coil approach.
Keywords