ADVANCED NEXT GEENRATION RADIO FREQUENCY COILS FOR MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING

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Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a safe, non-ionizing diagnostic tool. The overall goal of this project is to arrive very close to the ultimate intrinsic signal to noise ratio (UISNR) for a given MRI magnet field strength by combining innovations in very advanced transceiver technology. In Phase I, a high performance head RF coil receiver array will be prototyped and SNR performance compared to an existing commercial product. Emphasis in Phase II will be towards Phase I coil optimization, mechanical housing design followed by systematic phantom validation. MRI is the preferred method for examining soft tissue structures. However MRI signals are weak due to the small difference in energy levels population of parallel and anti-parallel spins (~6ppm at 1.5T) that contribute to the signal. Clinical MRI exams demand high resolution and/or fast scanning. Since SNR is the main limitation on fulfilling these requirements, it is the most important parameter of MRI systems. MRI SNR can be increased by signal averaging at the expense of lengthy scan times. Pursuit of higher SNR on one hand has resulted in a shift toward the use of higher static magnetic fields which is expensive and has siting and safety issues. On the other hand, we are rapidly approaching limitations in MRI systems with greater number of receiver channels. We propose novel innovations to optimize MRI SNR for a given magnet field strength. Generally SNR can be increased by increasing the signal strength or by reducing noise. We propose novel combinations to achieve maximum, near ultimate intrinsic MRI SNR by efficiently accomplishing both. The technology proposed has broad applications within and outside of MRI. A successful project will improve the MR image quality in shorter scan times thereby alleviating burden on high cost, high magnet field based MRI systems. The work proposed is original.