title: A 32-channel coil system for MR vessel wall imaging of intracranial and extracranial arteries at 3T.
abstract: To develop a RF coil system for joint imaging of intracranial and extracranial arterial vessel wall at 3T.
  
  
  
  The coil system consists of a 24-channel head coil combined with an 8-channel carotid coil. It is compared with a standard coil configuration (12-channel head coil+4-channel neck coil+8-channel carotid coil) for SNR and g-factors in phantoms and healthy volunteers. The clinical relevance of the proposed coil system is also evaluated in patients.
  
  
  
  In phantom experiments, the SNR of the proposed coil system is 53% higher than the maximum SNR of the standard coil configuration at the center of the phantom which usually corresponds to the intracranial region of the head. The g-factors of the proposed coil system in the sagittal plane are lower than the standard coil configuration (by 10.8% and 26.6% for R=2 and 4 respectively) in the same experiment. In healthy volunteer experiments, 55% of the pixels have SNR above 100 for the proposed coil system, which is 33% more than that of the standard coil configuration. The maximum g-factors in the standard configuration are higher than those from the new coil design by 12% at R=2 and up to 36% at R=4 in the sagittal plane. In patients, in-vivo intracranial and extracranial arterial wall images at an isotropic spatial resolution of 0.6mm can be acquired using the proposed coil system. Plaques are well depicted from the images.
  
  
  
  The performance of the proposed coil set is superior to the standard coil configuration, providing high SNR, low g-factor and good spatial coverage needed for simultaneous high resolution imaging of intracranial and extracranial arterial walls. Images acquired in 7.6min using the proposed coil system can achieve an isotropic spatial resolution of 0.6mm and can be used to depict plaques on the intracranial and extracranial arterial walls in patients.
authors.affiliation: Lauterbur Research Center for Biomedical Imaging, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China; Shenzhen Key Laboratory for MRI, Shenzhen, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoqing
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Lauterbur Research Center for Biomedical Imaging, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China; Shenzhen Key Laboratory for MRI, Shenzhen, China.
authors.forename: Ye
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Lauterbur Research Center for Biomedical Imaging, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China; Shenzhen Key Laboratory for MRI, Shenzhen, China.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California San Francisco, CA, USA; UCSF/UC Berkeley Joint Graduate Group in Bioengineering, San Francisco, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Xiaoliang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Lauterbur Research Center for Biomedical Imaging, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China; Shenzhen Key Laboratory for MRI, Shenzhen, China.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Lauterbur Research Center for Biomedical Imaging, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China; Shenzhen Key Laboratory for MRI, Shenzhen, China. Electronic address: yc.chung@siat.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Yiu-Cho
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Chung
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001158:Arteries / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D002339:Carotid Arteries; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020765:Intracranial Arterial Diseases / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D011846:Radio Waves; D014652:Vascular Diseases / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Extracranial arteries; Intracranial arteries; Magnetic resonance imaging; Phased array coils; Plaque imaging; Vessel wall imaging