Magnetic resonance image enhancement by reducing receptors' effective size and enabling multiple channel acquisition

Abstract

Magnetic resonance imaging is empowered by parallel reading, which reduces acquisition time dramatically. The time saved by parallelization can be used to increase image quality or to enable specialized scanning protocols in clinical and research environments. In small animals, the sizing constraints render the use of multi-channeled approaches even more necessary, as they help to improve the typically low spatial resolution and lesser signal-to-noise ratio; however, the use of multiple channels also generates mutual induction (MI) effects that impairs imaging creation. Here, we created coils and used the shared capacitor technique to diminish first degree MI effects and pre-amplifiers to deal with higher order MI-related image deterioration. The constructed devices are tested by imaging phantoms that contain identical solutions; thus, creating the conditions for several statistical comparisons. We confirm that the shared capacitor strategy can recover the receptor capacity in compounded coils when working at the dimensions imposed by small animal imaging. Additionally, we demonstrate that the use of pre-amplifiers does not significantly reduce the quality of the images. Moreover, in light of our results, the two MI-avoiding techniques can be used together, therefore establishing the practical feasibility of flexible array coils populated with multiple loops for small animal imaging.