title: Evaluation of coils for imaging histological slides: signal-to-noise ratio and filling factor.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the relative gain in sensitivity of five histology coils designed in-house to accommodate tissue sections of various sizes and compare with commercial mouse head coils.
  
  
  METHODS
  The coil set was tailored to house tissue sections ranging from 5 to1000 µm encased in either glass slides or coverslips.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Our simulations and experimental measurements demonstrated that although the sensitivity of this flat structure consistently underperforms relative to a birdcage head coil based on the gain expected from their respective filling factor ratios, our results demonstrate that it can still provide a remarkable gain in sensitivity. Our study also describes preparation protocols for freshly excised sections, as well as premounted tissue slides of both mouse and human specimens. Examples of the exceptional level of tissue detail and the near-perfect magnetic resonance imaging to light microscopic image coregistration are provided.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The increase in filling factor achieved by the histology radiofrequency (RF) probe overcomes the losses associated with electric leaks inherent to this structure, leading to a 6.7-fold improvement in performance for the smallest coil implemented. Alternatively, the largest histology coil design exhibited equal sensitivity to the mouse head coil while nearly doubling the RF planar area coverage.
authors.affiliation: The Bernard & Irene Schwartz Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, New York University Langone Medical Center (NYULMC), New York, New York, USA; Creatis-LRMN, UMR CNRS 5220, INSERM U 630, Université Lyon 1, Villeurbanne, France.
authors.forename: Dung Minh
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Hoang
authors.forename: Evelyn B
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Voura
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Latifa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Fakri-Bouchet
authors.forename: Youssef Zaim
authors.initials: YZ
authors.lastname: Wadghiri
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000295:instrumentation*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation*; D008280:Magnetics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D051379:Mice; D008853:Microscopy / Q000295:instrumentation*; D008867:Microtomy / Q000295:instrumentation*; D064847:Multimodal Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio; D014159:Transducers
keywords: MR histology; MR microscopy; RF coil design; coregistration; filling factor