A 32-Channel Head Coil Array with Circularly Symmetric Geometry for Accelerated Human Brain Imaging

Ying-Hua Chu; Yi-Cheng Hsu; Boris Keil; Wen-Jui Kuo; Fa-Hsuan Lin

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0149446

A 32-Channel Head Coil Array with Circularly Symmetric Geometry for Accelerated Human Brain Imaging

PLoS One. 2016 Feb 24;11(2):e0149446. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0149446. eCollection 2016.

Authors

Ying-Hua Chu¹, Yi-Cheng Hsu¹, Boris Keil^{2

3}, Wen-Jui Kuo⁴, Fa-Hsuan Lin¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Biomedical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
² Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States of America.
³ Institute for Medical Physics and Radiation Safety, Dept. of Life Science Engineering, Mittelhessen University of Applied Sciences, Gießen, Germany.
⁴ Institute of Neuroscience, National Yang Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan.

Abstract

The goal of this study is to optimize a 32-channel head coil array for accelerated 3T human brain proton MRI using either a Cartesian or a radial k-space trajectory. Coils had curved trapezoidal shapes and were arranged in a circular symmetry (CS) geometry. Coils were optimally overlapped to reduce mutual inductance. Low-noise pre-amplifiers were used to further decouple between coils. The SNR and noise amplification in accelerated imaging were compared to results from a head coil array with a soccer-ball (SB) geometry. The maximal SNR in the CS array was about 120% (1070 vs. 892) and 62% (303 vs. 488) of the SB array at the periphery and the center of the FOV on a transverse plane, respectively. In one-dimensional 4-fold acceleration, the CS array has higher averaged SNR than the SB array across the whole FOV. Compared to the SB array, the CS array has a smaller g-factor at head periphery in all accelerated acquisitions. Reconstructed images using a radial k-space trajectory show that the CS array has a smaller error than the SB array in 2- to 5-fold accelerations.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Brain / physiology*
Equipment Design
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
Magnetic Resonance Imaging / instrumentation*
Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods*
Signal-To-Noise Ratio

Grants and funding

This work was supported by NSC 101-2628-B-002-005-MY3, NSC 100-2325-B-002-046 (National Science Council, Taiwan), and Academy of Finland (the FiDiPro program). This work was also partially supported by MOST 103-2628-B-002-002-MY3, MOST 104-2314-B-002 -238, MOST 102-2410-H-010-004 -MY2 (Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan), 100-EC-17-A-19-S1-175 (Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan), and NHRI-EX103-10247EI (National Health Research Institute, Taiwan). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.