Abstract #4392

A Dedicated 8-Channel Flexible Array Coil for Ocular fMRI

Marcos Alonso Lopez Terrones¹,², Markus Dring,¹³, Daniel Gareis¹, Peter M. Jakob³,⁴

¹NORAS MRI products, Hchberg, Bavaria, Germany; ²Health Services of Durango, Durango, Mexico; ³Experimental Physics 5, University of Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Bavaria, Germany; ⁴Research Center Magnetic Resonance Bavaria, Wuerzburg, Bavaria, Germany

In ocular imaging, the development of dedicated MRI coils is useful to monitoring the visual cortex and to determinate the damage in the visual pathway before a surgery. We developed an 8-channel flexible array for ocular fMRI. The coil is comprised of two pieces with four channels each. SNR-maps and in-vivo images were compared with a conventional head-coil at 1.5T. The 8-channel flexible array shows 200% SNR improvement at the surface and 25% at the center of the phantom. In-vivo images acquired with the 8-channel flexible array have also shown better image quality throughout the whole visual pathway.