Medical Physics, Department of Radiology, University Medical Center Freiburg, Breisacher Str. 60a, 79106, Freiburg, Germany.
MAGMA. 2011 Jun;24(3):137-45. doi: 10.1007/s10334-011-0244-0. Epub 2011 Feb 18.
The aim of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility of MR microimaging on a conventional 9.4 T horizontal animal MRI system using commercial available microcoils in combination with only minor modifications to the system, thereby opening this field to a larger community.
Commercially available RF microcoils designed for high-resolution NMR spectrometers were used in combination with a custom-made probehead. For this purpose, changes within the transmit chain and modifications to the adjustment routines and image acquisition sequences were made, all without requiring expensive hardware. To investigate the extent to which routine operation and high-resolution imaging is possible, the quality of phantom images was analysed. Surface and solenoidal microcoils were characterized with regard to their sensitive volume and signal-to-noise ratio. In addition, the feasibility of using planar microcoils to achieve high-resolution images of living glioma cells labelled with MnCl(2) was investigated.
The setup presented in this work allows routine acquisition of high-quality images with high SNR and isotropic resolutions up to 10 μm within an acceptable measurement time.
This study demonstrates that MR microscopy can be applied at low cost on animal MR imaging systems, which are in widespread use. The successful imaging of living glioma cells indicates that the technique promises to be a useful tool in biomedical research.
本研究旨在展示在常规 9.4T 水平动物 MRI 系统上使用商业可用微线圈进行 MR 微成像的可行性，该系统仅需对系统进行微小修改，从而将该领域开放给更多的研究人员。
使用专为高分辨率 NMR 光谱仪设计的商业 RF 微线圈，并结合定制探头。为此，对发射链进行了更改，并修改了调整例程和图像采集序列，所有这些都无需昂贵的硬件。为了研究常规操作和高分辨率成像的可能性，分析了体模图像的质量。对表面和螺线管微线圈的敏感体积和信噪比进行了表征。此外，还研究了使用平面微线圈对用 MnCl(2)标记的活神经胶质瘤细胞进行高分辨率成像的可行性。
本工作中提出的设置允许在可接受的测量时间内以高 SNR 和各向同性分辨率高达 10μm 的常规采集高质量图像。
本研究表明，MR 显微镜可以在广泛使用的动物磁共振成像系统上以低成本应用。成功对活神经胶质瘤细胞进行成像表明，该技术有望成为生物医学研究中的有用工具。
