Quantitative assessment of the effects of high-permittivity pads in 7 Tesla MRI of the brain

The use of high-permittivity materials has been shown to be an effective method for increasing transmit and receive sensitivity in areas of low-signal intensity in the brain at high field. Results in this article show that the use of these materials does not increase the intercoil coupling for a phased array receive coil, does not have any detrimental effects on the B0 homogeneity within the brain, and does not affect the specific absorption rate distribution within the head. Areas of the brain close to the pads exhibit significant increases (>100%) in transmit field efficiency, but areas further away show a less pronounced (similar to 10%) decrease due to the homogenization of the transmit field and the loss introduced by the dielectric pads. Magn Reson Med, 2012. (c) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.