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Optically detunable, inductively coupled coil for self‐gating in small animal magnetic resonance imaging
Author(s) -
Korn Matthias,
Umathum Reiner,
Schulz Jessica,
Semmler Wolfhard,
Bock Michael
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
magnetic resonance in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.696
H-Index - 225
eISSN - 1522-2594
pISSN - 0740-3194
DOI - 10.1002/mrm.22665
Subject(s) - nuclear magnetic resonance , magnetic resonance imaging , gating , electromagnetic coil , magnetic resonance microscopy , materials science , physics , chemistry , spin echo , medicine , radiology , biophysics , biology , quantum mechanics
An inductively coupled coil concept is presented, which improves the compensation of physiological motion by the self‐gating (SG) technique. The animal is positioned in a conventional volume coil encompassing the whole animal. A small, resonant surface coil (SG‐coil) is placed on the thorax so that its sensitive region includes the heart. Via inductive coupling the SG‐coil amplifies selectively the MR signal of the beating heart. With an optical detuning mechanism, this coupling can be switched off during acquisition of the MR image information, whereas it is active during SG data sampling to provide the physiological information. In vivo experiments on a mouse show an amplification of the SG signal by at least 40%. Magn Reson Med, 2011. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.