A 16-channel AC/DC array coil for anesthetized monkey whole-brain imaging at 7T

Publication date: Available online 25 November 2019Source: NeuroImageAuthor(s): Yang Gao, Azma Mareyam, Yi Sun, Thomas Witzel, Nicolas Arango, Irene Kuang, Jacob White, Anna Wang Roe, Lawrence Wald, Jason Stockmann, Xiaotong ZhangAbstractsFunctional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in monkeys is important for bridging the gap between invasive animal brain studies and non-invasive human brain studies. To resolve the finer functional structure of the monkey brain, ultra-high-field (UHF) MR is essential, and high-performance, close-fitting RF receive coils are typically desired to fully leverage the intrinsic gains provided by UHF MRI. Moreover, static field (B0) inhomogeneity arising from the tissue susceptibility interface is more severe at UHF, presenting an obstacle to achieving high-resolution fMRI. B0 shim of the monkey head is challenging due to its smaller size and more complex sources of B0 offsets in multi-modal imaging tasks. In the present work, we have customized an array coil for lightly-anesthetized monkey fMRI in the 7T human scanner that combines RF and multi-coil (MC) B0 shim functionality (also referred to as AC/DC coils) to provide high imaging SNR and high-spatial-order, rapidly switchable B0-shim capability. Additional space was retained on the coil to render it compatible with monkey multi-modal imaging studies. Both MC global (whole-volume) and dynamic (slice-optimized) shim methods were tested and evaluated, and the benefits of MC shim for fMRI experime...
Source: NeuroImage - Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research