Department of Mechanical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
Photonics Center, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
Sci Adv. 2024 Jun 14;10(24):eadn5195. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adn5195. Epub 2024 Jun 12.
Anatomy-specific radio frequency receive coil arrays routinely adopted in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for signal acquisition are commonly burdened by their bulky, fixed, and rigid configurations, which may impose patient discomfort, bothersome positioning, and suboptimal sensitivity in certain situations. Herein, leveraging coaxial cables' inherent flexibility and electric field confining property, we present wireless, ultralightweight, coaxially shielded, passive detuning MRI coils achieving a signal-to-noise ratio comparable to or surpassing that of commercially available cutting-edge receive coil arrays with the potential for improved patient comfort, ease of implementation, and substantially reduced costs. The proposed coils demonstrate versatility by functioning both independently in form-fitting configurations, closely adapting to relatively small anatomical sites, and collectively by inductively coupling together as metamaterials, allowing for extension of the field of view of their coverage to encompass larger anatomical regions without compromising coil sensitivity. The wireless, coaxially shielded MRI coils reported herein pave the way toward next-generation MRI coils.
在磁共振成像 (MRI) 中，用于信号采集的特定于解剖结构的射频接收线圈阵列通常受到其庞大、固定和刚性配置的限制，这可能会给患者带来不适、不便的定位和某些情况下的灵敏度不佳。在这里，我们利用同轴电缆固有的灵活性和电场限制特性，提出了无线、超轻、同轴屏蔽、无源调谐 MRI 线圈，实现了与商业上可用的最先进接收线圈阵列相当或超过的信噪比，具有改善患者舒适度、易于实施和大幅降低成本的潜力。所提出的线圈通过以下方式展示了多功能性：以贴合配置的形式独立运行，紧密适应相对较小的解剖部位，以及作为超材料集体感应耦合，允许扩展其覆盖的视野以包含更大的解剖区域，而不会牺牲线圈灵敏度。本文报道的无线、同轴屏蔽 MRI 线圈为下一代 MRI 线圈铺平了道路。
