Multiple-mouse MRI with multiple arrays of receive coils.
Compared to traditional single-animal imaging methods, multiple-mouse MRI has been shown to dramatically improve imaging throughput and reduce the potentially prohibitive cost for instrument access. To date, up to a single radiofrequency coil has been dedicated to each animal being simultaneously scanned, thus limiting the sensitivity, flexibility, and ultimate throughput. The purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility of multiple-mouse MRI with a phased-array coil dedicated to each animal. A dual-mouse imaging system, consisting of a pair of two-element phased-array coils, was developed and used to achieve acceleration factors greater than the number of animals scanned at once. By simultaneously scanning two mice with a retrospectively gated cardiac cine MRI sequence, a 3-fold acceleration was achieved with signal-to-noise ratio in the heart that is equivalent to that achieved with an unaccelerated scan using a commercial mouse birdcage coil.
Department of Imaging Physics, The University of Texas M D Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas 77030-4009, USA.
Marc S
MS
Ramirez
Emilio
E
Esparza-Coss
James A
JA
Bankson
D000818:Animals; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000662:veterinary*; D008280:Magnetics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D051379:Mice / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014159:Transducers / Q000662:veterinary*; D051598:Whole Body Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000662:veterinary*