title: A 16-channel receive, forced current excitation dual-transmit coil for breast imaging at 7T.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To enable high spatial and temporal breast imaging resolution via combined use of high field MRI, array coils, and forced current excitation (FCE) multi channel transmit.
  
  
  METHODS
  A unilateral 16-channel receive array insert was designed for use in a transmit volume coil optimized for quadrature operation with dual-transmit RF shimming at 7 T. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) maps, g-factor maps, and high spatial and temporal resolution in vivo images were acquired to demonstrate the utility of the coil architecture.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The dual-transmit FCE coil provided homogeneous excitation and the array provided an increase in average SNR of 3.3 times (max 10.8, min 1.5) compared to the volume coil in transmit/receive mode. High resolution accelerated in vivo breast imaging demonstrated the ability to achieve isotropic spatial resolution of 0.5 mm within clinically relevant 90 s scan times, as well as the ability to perform 1.0 mm isotropic resolution imaging, 7 s per dynamics, with the use of bidirectional SENSE acceleration of up to R = 9.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The FCE design of the transmit coil easily accommodates the addition of a sixteen channel array coil. The improved spatial and temporal resolution provided by the high-field array coil with FCE dual-channel transmit will ultimately be beneficial in lesion detection and characterization.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America.
authors.forename: Samantha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: By
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America.
authors.forename: Joseph V
authors.initials: JV
authors.lastname: Rispoli
authors.affiliation: Advanced Imaging Research Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States of America; Department of Radiology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States of America.
authors.forename: Sergey
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cheshkov
authors.affiliation: Advanced Imaging Research Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States of America; Philips Medical Systems, Cleveland, Ohio, United States of America.
authors.forename: Ivan
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Dimitrov
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jiaming
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States of America.
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Seiler
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States of America.
authors.forename: Sally
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Goudreau
authors.affiliation: Advanced Imaging Research Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States of America; Department of Radiology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States of America; VA North Texas Health Care System, Dallas, Texas, United States of America.
authors.forename: Craig
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Malloy
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America; Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America.
authors.forename: Steven M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Wright
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America; Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America.
authors.forename: Mary Preston
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: McDougall
mesh_terms: D001940:Breast / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000517:prevention & control; D004867:Equipment Design; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio