MR microscopy on rats in vivo at 4.7 T using surface coils

Abstract

MR microscopy on intact rats using a single surface coil is reported. The use of the same coil for excitation and detection is experimentally very simple and results in a smaller field‐of‐view than the conventional setup using homogeneous excitation (whole‐body coil or a large surface coil) and a small receiver surface coil. Images at 4.7 T with 60 × 60‐m̈m pixels and an 800‐m̈m slice thickness have been obtained from the eye and ankle joint of a living rat with good anatomical definition. This corresponds to a four‐ to eightfold reduction in voxel size as compared to high‐resolution images obtained with a 30‐mm resonator probe. Many of the basic MRI experiments (spin‐echo, FLASH, chemical‐shift selective MRI) may be carried out in a straightforward way with this one‐coil setup. Sequences relying on a homogeneous flip angle distribution require a whole‐body excitation Coil. © Academic Press, Inc.