Т1 mapping of rat lungs in 19 F MRI using octafluorocyclobutane.

PURPOSE: To demonstrate the feasibility of using octafluorocyclobutane (OFCB, c-C4 F8 ) for T1 mapping of lungs in 19 F MRI. METHODS: The study was performed at 7 T in three healthy rats and three rats with pulmonary hypertension. To increase the sensitivity of 19 F MRI, a bent-shaped RF coil with periodic metal strips structure was used. The double flip angle method was used to calculate normalized transmitting RF field (B1n + ) maps and for correcting T1 maps built with the variable flip angle (VFA) method. The ultrashort TE pulse sequence was applied for acquiring MR images throughout the study. RESULTS: The dependencies of OFCB relaxation times on its partial pressure in mixtures with oxygen, air, helium, and argon were obtained. T1 of OFCB linearly depended on its partial pressure with the slope of about 0.35 ms/kPa in the case of free diffusion. RF field inhomogeneity leads to distortion of T1 maps built with the VFA method, and therefore to high standard deviation of T1 in these maps. To improve the accuracy of the T1 maps, the B1n + maps were applied for VFA correction. This contributed to a 2-3-fold decrease in the SD of T1 values in the corresponding maps compared with T1 maps calculated without the correction. Three-dimensional T1 maps were obtained, and the mean T1 in healthy rat lungs was 35 ± 10 ms, and in rat lungs with pulmonary hypertension - 41 ± 9 ms. CONCLUSION: OFCB has a spin-rotational relaxation mechanism and can be used for 19 F T1 mapping of lungs. The calculated OFCB maps captured ventilation defects induced by edema.

Small-animal, whole-body imaging with metamaterial-inspired RF coil.

Particular applications in preclinical magnetic resonance imaging require the entire body of an animal to be imaged with sufficient quality. This is usually performed by combining regions scanned with small coils with high sensitivity or long scans using large coils with low sensitivity. Here, a metamaterial-inspired design employing a parallel array of wires operating on the principle of eigenmode hybridization was used to produce a small-animal imaging coil. The coil field distribution responsible for the coil field of view and sensitivity was simulated in an electromagnetic simulation package and the coil geometrical parameters were optimized for whole-body imaging. A prototype coil was then manufactured and assembled using brass telescopic tubes with copper plates as distributed capacitance. Its field distribution was measured experimentally using the B1+ mapping technique and was found to be in close correspondence with the simulated results. The coil field distribution was found to be suitable for large field of view small-animal imaging and the coil image quality was compared with a commercially available coil by whole-body scanning of living mice. Signal-to-noise measurements in living mice showed higher values than those of a commercially available coil with large receptive fields, and rivalled the performance of small receptive field and high-sensitivity coils. The coil was deemed to be suitable for some whole-body, small-animal preclinical applications.

Element decoupling of 7T dipole body arrays by EBG metasurface structures: Experimental verification.

Metasurfaces are artificial electromagnetic boundaries or interfaces usually implemented as two-dimensional periodic structures with subwavelength periodicity and engineered properties of constituent unit cells. The electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) effect in metasurfaces prevents all surface modes from propagating in a certain frequency band. While metasurfaces provide a number of important applications in microwave antennas and antenna arrays, their features are also highly suitable for MRI applications. In this work we perform a proof-of-principle experiment to study finite structures based on mushroom-type EBG metasurfaces and employ them for suppression of inter-element coupling in dipole transceive array coils for body imaging at 7T. We firstly show experimentally that employment of mushroom structures leads to reduction of coupling between adjacent closely-spaced dipole antenna elements of a 7T transceive body array, which reduces scattering losses in neighboring channels. The studied setup consists of two active fractionated dipole antennas previously designed by the authors for body imaging at 7T. These are placed on top of a body-mimicking phantom and equipped with the manufactured finite-size periodic structure tuned to have EBG properties at the Larmor frequency of 298MHz. To improve the detection range of the B1+ field distribution of the top elements, four additional elements were positioned along the bottom side of the phantom. Bench measurements of a scattering matrix showed that coupling between the two top elements can be considerably reduced depending on the distance to the EBG structure. On the other hand, the measurements performed on a 7T MRI machine indicated redistribution of the B1+ field due to interaction between the dipoles with the structure. When the structure is located just over two closely spaced dipoles, one can reach a very high isolation improvement of -14dB accompanied by a strong field redistribution. In contrast, when put at a certain height over the antennas the structure provides a moderate isolation improvement together with a slight increase of B1+ level. This study provides a tool for the decoupling of dipole antennas in ultrahigh field transceive arrays, possibly resulting in denser element placement and/or larger subject-element spacing.