Shielded-coaxial-cable coils as receive and transceive array elements for 7T human MRI.

PURPOSE

To investigate the use of shielded-coaxial-cable (SCC) coils as elements for multi-channel receive-only and transceive arrays for 7T human MRI and to compare their performance with equivalently sized conventional loop coils.

METHODS

The SCC coil element consists of a coaxial loop with interrupted central conductor at the feed-point side and an interrupted shield at the opposite point. Inter-element decoupling, transmit efficiency, and sample heating were compared with results from conventional capacitively segmented loop coils. Three multichannel arrays (a 4-channel receive-only array and 8- and 5-channel transceive arrays) were constructed. Their inter-element decoupling was characterized via measured noise correlation matrices and additionally under different flexing conditions of the coils. Thermal measurements were performed and in vivo images were acquired.

RESULTS

The measured and simulated maps of both SCC and conventional loops were very similar. For all the arrays constructed, the inter-element decoupling was much greater for the SCC elements than the conventional ones. Even under high degrees of flexion, the coupling coefficients were lower than -10 dB, with a much smaller frequency shift than for the conventional coils.

CONCLUSION

Arrays constructed from SCC elements are mechanically flexible and much less sensitive to changes of the coil shape from circular to elongated than arrays constructed from conventional loop coils, which makes them suitable for construction of size adjustable arrays.