For this Phase I STTR proposal, the investigators plan to develop the radiofrequency (RF) coil technology required for high-resolution fMRI at 7T. In the absence of a body transmit coil, all 7T head coils must also incorporate a transmitter in addition to the receiver. Here, we propose a transmit array with up to 16 individual channels combined with a receive array that uses the highest number of receive channels currently available for 7T, which is 32. The technology incorporates a number of innovations including a novel, small on-coil preamplifier, a modular housing design, and our patented cable traps for sheet-current suppression. The technology combines the advantages of multi- channel RF-transmit-field control, optimization, and efficiency with optimal receive-array technology. Our proposal has the flexibility to use our new housing/coil in either a first configuration that has a fully unrestricted visual field-of-view with significant task presentation advantages for all applications that do not require whole-brain image acquisition, or a second configuration that adds a novel frontal-lobe coil array to provide whole-brain coverage. Both configurations will be designed in a way that, when compared to currently available commercial whole-head coils, will achieve significantly superior task-presentation capability, the ability to utilize motion-correctin cameras, and improved peripheral SNR.
We plan to provide, for the first time, a commercial radiofrequency (RF) multi-configuration head-coil system for functional MRI of humans at 7 Tesla, along with an improved head coil system for 3-Tesla fMRI clinical imaging. For whole-brain imaging mode, these two-part head coils will implement 4, 8 or 16 transmit channels with 32 receive channels with mostly unrestricted view, along with our newly patented technique for sheet-current suppression. For totally unrestricted-field-of-view mode, the front part with its 4 transmit channels and 8 receive channels are removed to accommodate motion cameras and eye trackers. RF-field optimization capability together with significant transmit efficiency gains through conformal fit and on-coil, channel-dedicated preamplifiers. This new RF technology will make high-resolution 7T fMRI imaging possible and fMRI imaging substantially improved.
| Sengupta, Shubharthi; Roebroeck, Alard; Kemper, Valentin G et al. (2016) A Specialized Multi-Transmit Head Coil for High Resolution fMRI of the Human Visual Cortex at 7T. PLoS One 11:e0165418 |
