title: Optically detunable, inductively coupled coil for self-gating in small animal magnetic resonance imaging.
abstract: An inductively coupled coil concept is presented, which improves the compensation of physiological motion by the self-gating (SG) technique. The animal is positioned in a conventional volume coil encompassing the whole animal. A small, resonant surface coil (SG-coil) is placed on the thorax so that its sensitive region includes the heart. Via inductive coupling the SG-coil amplifies selectively the MR signal of the beating heart. With an optical detuning mechanism, this coupling can be switched off during acquisition of the MR image information, whereas it is active during SG data sampling to provide the physiological information. In vivo experiments on a mouse show an amplification of the SG signal by at least 40%.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Physics in Radiology, Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Korn
authors.forename: Reiner
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Umathum
authors.forename: Jessica
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Schulz
authors.forename: Wolfhard
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Semmler
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bock
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000295:instrumentation*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000662:veterinary*; D008280:Magnetics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D051379:Mice; D055096:Optical Devices; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D051598:Whole Body Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000662:veterinary*