A local multi-transmit coil combined with a high-density receive array for cerebellar fMRI at 7 T.
NMR Biomed
; 34(11): e4586, 2021 11.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-34231292
ABSTRACT
The human cerebellum is involved in a wide array of functions, ranging from motor control to cognitive control, and as such is of great neuroscientific interest. However, its function is underexplored in vivo, due to its small size, its dense structure and its placement at the bottom of the brain, where transmit and receive fields are suboptimal. In this study, we combined two dense coil arrays of 16 small surface receive elements each with a transmit array of three antenna elements to improve BOLD sensitivity in the human cerebellum at 7 T. Our results showed improved B1+ and SNR close to the surface as well as g-factor gains compared with a commercial coil designed for whole-head imaging. This resulted in improved signal stability and large gains in the spatial extent of the activation close to the surface (<3.5 cm), while good performance was retained deeper in the cerebellum. Modulating the phase of the transmit elements of the head coil to constructively interfere in the cerebellum improved the B1+ , resulting in a temporal SNR gain. Overall, our results show that a dedicated transmit array along with the SNR gains of surface coil arrays can improve cerebellar imaging, at the cost of a decreased field of view and increased signal inhomogeneity.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
/
Cerebellum
Limits:
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
NMR Biomed
Journal subject:
DIAGNOSTICO POR IMAGEM
/
MEDICINA NUCLEAR
Year:
2021
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Netherlands
Publication country:
ENGLAND
/
ESCOCIA
/
GB
/
GREAT BRITAIN
/
INGLATERRA
/
REINO UNIDO
/
SCOTLAND
/
UK
/
UNITED KINGDOM