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Design of a SENSE-optimized high-sensitivity MRI receive coil for brain imaging
Jacco A de Zwart1, Patrick J Ledden, Peter Kellman
1Advanced MRI, Laboratory of Functional and Molecular Imaging, NINDS, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892-1065, USA.
Abstract:
An 8-channel receive-only detector array was developed for SENSE MRI of human brain. The coil geometry was based on a gapped element design and used ultra-high impedance preamplifiers for mutual decoupling of the elements. Computer simulations of the electric and magnetic fields showed that excellent signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and SENSE performance could be achieved by placing the coil elements close to the head and maintaining a substantial gap between the elements. Measurements with a 1.5 T prototype coil showed a 2.7-fold improvement of the SNR averaged over the brain compared to a conventional quadrature birdcage receive coil and an average geometrical noise amplification factor (g-value) of 1.06 and 1.38 for rate-2 and rate-3 SENSE, respectively.