title: A dedicated two-channel phased-array receiver coil for high-resolution MRI of the rat knee cartilage at 7 T.
abstract: In the field of small animal studies, the array coil imaging has become increasingly important. In this paper, a dedicated two-channel array coil operating at 300 MHz (7 T) for high-resolution MRI (HR-MRI) of the rat knee cartilage is presented. The average gain in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) compared to a 15-mm multipurpose surface coil was 2.2. This SNR gain was used to improve the spatial resolution of 3-D acquisitions by decreasing the voxel size from 59 x 59 x 156 microm(3) to 51 x 51 x 94 microm(3) without time penalty. Also, a set of two array coils was used to perform a simultaneous acquisition of both knee joints of a rat, maintaining the same scanning time without SNR or spatial resolution degradation compared to the single knee joint acquisition. This two-channel array coil is a key element to perform HR-MRI and extract cartilage morphological parameters such as thickness and volume.
authors.affiliation: Université de Lyon, CREATIS-LRMN, Lyon, France. adrian.rengle@univ-lyon1.fr
authors.forename: Adrian
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rengle
authors.forename: Mircea
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Armenean
authors.forename: Radu
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bolbos
authors.forename: Jean-Christophe
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Goebel
authors.forename: Astrid
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pinzano-Watrin
authors.forename: Hervé
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Saint-Jalmes
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gillet
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Beuf
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002358:Cartilage, Articular / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D006614:Hindlimb / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000295:instrumentation*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000662:veterinary*; D008280:Magnetics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D051381:Rats; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014159:Transducers / Q000662:veterinary*