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Abstract #0559

A portable brain MRI scanner based on a 72 mT, 35 kg "Halbach-bulb" magnet and external gradient coil

Clarissa Zimmerman Cooley1,2, Jason Stockmann1,2, and Lawrence L Wald1,2,3
1Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States, 2Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States, 3Harvard–MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States

There is clear motivation for increasing the accessibility of MRI, particularly for brain imaging. To address this, we present a portable tight-fitting MRI scanner with a geometry that is optimized for head. We use a 35kg “Halbach-bulb” permanent magnet design that combines a Halbach sphere and Halbach cylinder. The gradient coils are designed on the outer surface of the magnet, enabling a closer-fit B0 magnet. The inhomogeneous B0 magnet results image distortion, which we correct using a generalized reconstruction algorithm that employs measured field maps. We present the full scanner system and in vivo 3D images with resolution 1.5mmx2.7mmx7mm.

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