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Review
. 2023 Apr;36(2):191-210.
doi: 10.1007/s10334-023-01085-z. Epub 2023 Apr 8.

Germany's journey toward 14 Tesla human magnetic resonance

Mark E Ladd #  1   2   3   4 , Harald H Quick #  5   6 , Oliver Speck #  7   8   9   10 , Michael Bock  11 , Arnd Doerfler  12 , Michael Forsting  13 , Jürgen Hennig  11 , Bernd Ittermann  14 , Harald E Möller  15 , Armin M Nagel  16   17 , Thoralf Niendorf  18 , Stefan Remy  8   10 , Tobias Schaeffter  14 , Klaus Scheffler  19   20 , Heinz-Peter Schlemmer  21 , Sebastian Schmitter  14 , Laura Schreiber  22 , N Jon Shah  23 , Tony Stöcker  24 , Michael Uder  17 , Arno Villringer  25 , Nikolaus Weiskopf  26   27 , Moritz Zaiss  12 , Maxim Zaitsev  11
Affiliations
Review

Germany's journey toward 14 Tesla human magnetic resonance

Mark E Ladd et al. MAGMA. 2023 Apr.

Abstract

Multiple sites within Germany operate human MRI systems with magnetic fields either at 7 Tesla or 9.4 Tesla. In 2013, these sites formed a network to facilitate and harmonize the research being conducted at the different sites and make this technology available to a larger community of researchers and clinicians not only within Germany, but also worldwide. The German Ultrahigh Field Imaging (GUFI) network has defined a strategic goal to establish a 14 Tesla whole-body human MRI system as a national research resource in Germany as the next progression in magnetic field strength. This paper summarizes the history of this initiative, the current status, the motivation for pursuing MR imaging and spectroscopy at such a high magnetic field strength, and the technical and funding challenges involved. It focuses on the scientific and science policy process from the perspective in Germany, and is not intended to be a comprehensive systematic review of the benefits and technical challenges of higher field strengths.

Keywords: 14T; Extremely high field; GUFI; MRI; Ultrahigh field.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
SNR values in four different brain compartments as a function of magnetic field strength B0. The red line represents fitting results on the SNR over the entire cerebrum as SNR = B01.65 (reproduced with permission from Fig. 5b in [17])
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The critical surfaces for NbTi and Nb3Sn showing the parameter volume under the critical surface in which the material is superconducting. Higher magnetic fields B can be achieved to a certain extent by lowering the current density J in the superconductor or reducing the temperature T. Above about 12 T, NbTi is no longer viable for human MRI magnets (adapted and reproduced with permission from [50])
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Relative 1-g local SAR increase versus 300 MHz for an 8-channel dipole array driven with all elements in phase (00) or with circular polarization (CP). The maxCh array has 8 elements at 300 MHz and 19 elements at 1000 MHz (reproduced with permission from Fig. 5 g in [63])
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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