Project-Oriented RF Coil Comparison and Optimization for Preclinical, Single-Voxel MR Spectroscopy of the Rat Visual Cortex at 9.4 T

IEEE Access, vol. 11, pp. 48601–48610

Abstract

As one of the most important cortical structures in the brain, the visual cortex plays a primary role in processing visual data. Observing the metabolic changes in this region using single-voxel MR spectroscopy (MRS) can provide a plethora of information on the disease stage and progress in vivo. For single-voxel MRS experiments, a target voxel is always chosen and specifically investigated. The volume of the voxel must be sufficiently small to avoid any interference from adjacent areas but large enough to maximise its signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Of the factors used to improve SNR, e.g. enlarging voxel size or increasing the number of signal averaging, the optimisation of the RF coil can contribute significantly to the SNR improvement. In this work, we compared and optimised RF coils which include a circularly-polarised (CP) high-pass birdcage coil and two CP surface coils with different dimensions. The coils were particularly designed for the entire rat head, brain and the target region (visual cortex), respectively. The performance of these coils was evaluated based on the project-specific purpose of investigating metabolite concentration changes in the visual cortex of the in vivo rat brain, assessed by means of single-voxel MRS at 9.4 T. In the SNR comparison, the values obtained using the optimised small loop coil were found to be approximately 5 and 1.35 times higher than those using the birdcage volume head coil and the medium-sized loop coil, respectively. In other words, using the optimised coil rather than, for example, the birdcage coil allows the acquisition to be completed more quickly by a factor of 25 times. In conclusion, by using the optimised setup, we can i) benefit either from reduced measurement time or in the acquisition of high-quality MR images or ii) obtain spectra with a minimum quantification error.

Authors 6

1. Chang‐Hoon Choi

   Forschungszentrum Jülich

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine---4, Forschungszentrum Juelich, Juelich, Germany

2. Ezequiel Farrher

   Forschungszentrum Jülich

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine---4, Forschungszentrum Juelich, Juelich, Germany

3. Jörg Felder Aachen

   Forschungszentrum Jülich · RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine---4, Forschungszentrum Juelich, Juelich, Germany

   RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

4. Jing Wang

   Forschungszentrum Jülich

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine---4, Forschungszentrum Juelich, Juelich, Germany

5. Antje Willuweit

   Forschungszentrum Jülich

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine---4, Forschungszentrum Juelich, Juelich, Germany

6. Nadim Jon Shah Aachen Department of Neurology

   Forschungszentrum Jülich · Jülich Aachen Research Alliance · RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine---4, Forschungszentrum Juelich, Juelich, Germany

   Department of Neurology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

   JARA, Forschungszentrum Juelich, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine---11, Juelich, Germany

   JARA---BRAIN---Translational Medicine, Aachen, Germany

   RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany