Integrated RF coil and sample holder for magnetic resonance microscopy

磁共振成像（MRI）现在已经成为临床诊断的一种工具。MRI在非常高分辨率的MRI中也有潜在的作用，或者被称为小组织样本的磁共振显微镜（MRM）。与体内MRI相比，这种离体MRM原则上允许大幅提高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，从而增强了MRI方法向临床领域的转化。然而，在标准核磁共振扫描仪上进行核磁共振成像受到信号灵敏度和商业组织样本支架的大小和形状的限制。该项目通过一个新概念解决了这些限制，该概念将检测MRI信号的传感器（一种新型高性能射频线圈）集成到一个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小于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显著吸收。

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.