Three-element phased-array coil for imaging of rat spinal cord at 7T

To overcome some of the limitations of an implantable coil, including its invasive nature and limited spatial coverage, a three-element phased-array coil is described for high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of rat spinal cord. This coil allows imaging both thoracic and cervical segments of rat spinal cord. In the current design, coupling between the nearest neighbors was minimized by overlapping the coil elements. A simple capacitive network was used for decoupling the next neighbor elements. The dimensions of individual coils in the array were determined based on the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) measurements performed on a phantom with three different surface coils. SNR measurements on a phantom demonstrated higher SNR for the phased array coil relative to two different volume coils. In vivo images acquired on rat spinal cord with our coil demonstrated excellent gray and white matter contrast. To evaluate the performance of the phased array coil under parallel imaging, g-factor maps were obtained for acceleration factors of 2 and 3. These simulations indicate that parallel imaging with an acceleration factor of 2 would be possible without significant image reconstruction-related noise amplifications.