Ces radiol. 2018, 72(3):196-203 | DOI: 10.55095/CesRadiol2018/028

Construction of wide tuneable volume radiofrekvency coil for MR imaging of small rodentsOriginal article

Martin Vít^1,2, Pavel Marton², Martin Burian¹, Andrea Gálisová¹, Daniel Jirák^1,3

¹ Institut klinické a experimentální medicíny, Praha

² Technická univerzita Liberec, Fakulta mechatroniky, informatiky a mezioborových studií, Liberec

³ Technická univerzita Liberec, Fakulta zdravotnických studií, Liberec

Aim: We present a radio frequency volume coil with a working volume of 100 ml for in vivo ¹H and ¹⁹F MR imaging of small rodents on a 4.7 T experimental spectrometer. The coil has a single-channel excitation.

Method: Structure of coil is birdcage type with twelve longitudinal elements generating a sufficiently homogeneous electromagnetic field B₁ in the coil. From commonly constructed birdcage coils, this is distinguished by the possibility of changing the resonant frequency over a large frequency range (including f₀¹⁹_F = 188.6 MHz - f₀¹_H = 200.4 MHz @ B0 4.7T), which is allowed possible by changing the electrical capacitance between the wires through changes in the length of the coil.

Result: The quality factors in the resonances for the unloaded coil are Q¹_H = 328 and Q¹⁹_F = 331. This is comparable to the common type of birdcage coil design used for only one of the frequencies. However, the presented coil allows measurement of ¹H, as well as ¹⁹F images with comparable MR signals, but without the need to change the coils between individual measurements.

Conclusion: Both such measurements can thus be performed with an identical rodent position.

Keywords: small animals, magnetic resonance, bird cage coil, ¹H/¹⁹F MRI

Grants and funding:

Práce byla podpořena z fondu SGS TUL a z programového projektu GA ČR P205-16-03156S.

Accepted: June 15, 2018; Published: September 1, 2018  Show citation