Yongxian Qian1, Tiejun Zhao2, Steven Baete1, Karthik Lakshmanan1, Graham Wiggins1, and Fernando E Boada1
1Radiology, New York University, New York, NY, United States, 2Siemens Medical Solutions USA, New York, NY, United States
A
transmit/receive (Tx/Rx) array coil has high efficiency in transmission and thus
reduces specific absorption rate (SAR), which is highly desired in clinical
applications for sodium (23Na) MR imaging. However, a Tx/Rx array coil at 3T usually
produces a spatially-varying excitation (B1+) field and does not provide a uniform
sum-of-squares of coil sensitivities (B1- fields) for quantitative sodium MRI.
Here we present a solution to this problem and demonstrate its effectiveness with
studies on phantoms and subjects with neurological disorders such as multiple
sclerosis (MS), epilepsy, and mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI).
