Parallel-Transmission-Enabled T1-Weighted Human Brain Imaging for Robust Volumetric and Morphologic Studies at 7T

M.A. Cloos¹, ², A. Amadon¹, N. Boulant¹, M. Luong², G. Ferrand², E. Giacomini¹, M-F. Hang¹, C.J. Wiggins¹, D. Le Bihan¹

One of the promises of Ultra High Field MRI scanners is to bring finer spatial resolutions due to an increased signal to noise ratio. However, the spatial non-uniformity of the Radio Frequency transmit profile challenges the applicability of most MRI sequences, where the signal and contrast levels strongly depend on the flip angle homogeneity. In particular, the MP-RAGE sequence, one of the most commonly employed 3D sequences to obtain T1-weighted anatomical images for brain morphology studies, is highly sensitive to these spatial variations. In this work, we evaluate the potential of parallel-transmission to obtain high-quality highly-resolved MP-RAGE images of the human brain at 7 Tesla.