Xiaoping Wu1, Gregor Adriany1, Eddie J. Auerbach1, Sebastian Schmitter1, Kamil Ugurbil1, and Pierre-Francois Van de Moortele 1
Increased signal to noise ratio and tissue
contrast are
strong incentive for pushing toward higher magnetic fields. However, as the magnetic
field increases, transmit B1 fields become more and
more non-uniform, leading to spatially varying contrast and local signal dropouts. This problem can be addressed with parallel RF transmission (pTx). We have recently made operational the first 10.5 Tesla whole body
MRI scanner which holds promise for a wide range of biomedical applications. In this study, we assessed the performance of the installed 16-channel pTx system by designing 2D Transmit SENSE pulses. Our results suggest that high fidelity excitation patterns can be attained after correction of system imperfections.
