title: 32-channel 3 Tesla receive-only phased-array head coil with soccer-ball element geometry.
abstract: A 32-channel 3T receive-only phased-array head coil was developed for human brain imaging. The helmet-shaped array was designed to closely fit the head with individual overlapping circular elements arranged in patterns of hexagonal and pentagonal symmetry similar to that of a soccer ball. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and noise amplification (g-factor) in accelerated imaging applications were quantitatively evaluated in phantom and human images and compared with commercially available head coils. The 32-channel coil showed SNR gains of up to 3.5-fold in the cortex and 1.4-fold in the corpus callosum compared to a (larger) commercial eight-channel head coil. The experimentally measured g-factor performance of the helmet array showed significant improvement compared to the eight-channel array (peak g-factor 59% and 26% of the eight-channel values for four- and fivefold acceleration). The performance of the arrays is demonstrated in high-resolution and highly accelerated brain images.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, A.A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts 02129, USA. gwiggins@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu
authors.forename: G C
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: Wiggins
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Triantafyllou
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Potthast
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Reykowski
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nittka
authors.forename: L L
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Wald
mesh_terms: D006624:Hippocampus / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*