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. 2020 Feb;83(2):749-764.
doi: 10.1002/mrm.27929. Epub 2019 Sep 4.

A 32-channel multi-coil setup optimized for human brain shimming at 9.4T

Ali Aghaeifar  1   2 , Jiazheng Zhou  1   2 , Rahel Heule  1 , Behzad Tabibian  3 , Bernhard Schölkopf  3 , Feng Jia  4 , Maxim Zaitsev  4 , Klaus Scheffler  1   5
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Free article

A 32-channel multi-coil setup optimized for human brain shimming at 9.4T

Ali Aghaeifar et al. Magn Reson Med. 2020 Feb.
Free article

Abstract

Purpose: A multi-coil shim setup is designed and optimized for human brain shimming. Here, the size and position of a set of square coils are optimized to improve the shim performance without increasing the number of local coils. Utilizing such a setup is especially beneficial at ultrahigh fields where B0 inhomogeneity in the human brain is more severe.

Methods: The optimization started with a symmetric arrangement of 32 independent coils. Three parameters per coil were optimized in parallel, including angular and axial positions on a cylinder surface and size of the coil, which were constrained by cylinder size, construction consideration, and amplifiers specifications. B0 maps were acquired at 9.4T in 8 healthy volunteers for use as training data. The global and dynamic shimming performance of the optimized multi-coil were compared in simulations and measurements to a symmetric design and to the scanner's second-order shim setup, respectively.

Results: The optimized multi-coil performs better by 14.7% based on standard deviation (SD) improvement with constrained global shimming in comparison to the symmetric positioning of the coils. Global shimming performance was comparable with a symmetric 65-channel multi-coil and full fifth-order spherical harmonic shim coils. On average, an SD of 48.4 and 31.9 Hz was achieved for in vivo measurements after global and dynamic slice-wise shimming, respectively.

Conclusions: An optimized multi-coil shim setup was designed and constructed for human whole-brain shimming. Similar performance of the multi-coils with many channels can be achieved with a fewer number of channels when the coils are optimally arranged around the target.

Keywords: B0 inhomogeneity; B0 shimming; echo planar imaging; multi-coil; optimization; ultrahigh field.

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References

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