Journal
MAGNETIC RESONANCE IN MEDICINE
Volume 66, Issue 4, Pages 1198-1208Publisher
WILEY-BLACKWELL
DOI: 10.1002/mrm.22906
Keywords
RF coil; phased-array; brain; spinal cord
Funding
- National Institute of Health [P41RR14075, U01MH093765]
- French MS Society (ARSEP)
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Diffusion and functional magnetic resonance imaging of the spinal cord remain challenging due to the small cross-sectional size of the cord and susceptibility-related distortions. Although partially addressable through parallel imaging, few highly parallel array coils have been implemented for the cervical cord. Here, we developed a 32-channel coil that fully covers the brain and c-spine and characterized its performance in comparison with a commercially available head/neck/spine array. Image and temporal signal-to-noise ratio were, respectively, increased by 2x and 1.8x in the cervical cord. Averaged g-factors at 4x acceleration were lowered by 22% in the brain and by 39% in the spinal cord, enabling 1-mm isotropic R = 4 multi-echo magnetization prepared gradient echo of the full brain and c-spine in 3:20 min. Diffusion imaging of the cord at 0.6 x 0.6 x 5 mm(3) resolution and tractography of the full brain and c-spine at 1.7-mm isotropic resolution were feasible without noticeable distortion. Improvements of this nature potentially enhance numerous basic and clinical research studies focused on spinal and supraspinal regions. Magn Reson Med 66:1198-1208, 2011. (C) 2011 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
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