Integrated RF coil and sample holder for magnetic resonance microscopy

磁共振成像(MRI)现已被公认为临床诊断的一种工具。磁共振成像在非常高分辨率的磁共振成像方面也有潜在的作用，也就是对小组织样本的磁共振显微镜(MRM)。与在体MRI相比，这种体外MRM原则上可以显著提高MRI测量的灵敏度，以检测潜在疾病的细胞/分子变化。这对于研究人员确定导致体内MRI变化的生物/疾病过程至关重要，从而加强MRI方法向临床领域的转化。然而，在标准的核磁共振扫描仪上进行磁共振成像受到信号灵敏度和商业组织样品架的大小和形状的限制。该项目通过一种新的概念解决了这些限制，该概念将检测MRI信号的传感器--一种新的非常高性能的射频线圈--集成到专门设计的组织样本容器中。这将允许系统用户在合理的扫描时间内以低于100微米的图像分辨率进行MRM，这反过来将导致这种生物成像技术的大量采用。

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is now well established as a tool in clinical diagnosis. MRI also has a potential role in very high resolution MRI, otherwise known as magnetic resonance microscopy (MRM) on small tissue samples. This ex-vivo MRM, in principle, allows substantial increase in sensitivity of the MRI measurements to detect cellular/molecular changes underlying disease compared with in-vivo MRI. This is essential for researchers to determine the biological/disease processes that leads to MRI changes in vivo, enhancing the translation of MRI methods to the clinical arena. However undertaking MRM on standard MRI scanners is limited by signal sensitivity and by the size and shape of commercial tissue sample holders. This project addresses these limitations with a new concept that integrates the sensor that detects the MRI signal, a new very high performance RF coil, into a specially designed tissue sample container. This will allow the system users to undertake MRM with image resolution of less than 100 micro-meters in reasonable scan times, this in turn will lead to a significant uptake of this bio-imaging techniques.