Azma Mareyam1, Jonathan Rizzo Polimeni1, Vijayanand Alagappan1, Bruce Fischl1,2, Lawrence L. Wald1,3
1A. A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Dept. of Radiology,MGH, Charlestown, MA, USA; 2CSAIL, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA; 3Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology , Harvard-MIT , Cambridge, MA, USA
High-field MRI of ex vivo samples provides 3D image encoding at resolutions capable of resolving laminar and myeloarchitectonic features, thus providing a potential replacement for the technically challenging task of whole-brain histological sectioning. Here we present a 30-channel receive-only coil array for high-resolution whole-cerebral-hemisphere imaging. With this array, whole-hemisphere acquisitions of 150 m voxel size in which laminar details are clearly detectable are possible within six hours. Considerations for satisfying the many constraints imposed by ex vivo imaging on surface coil are discussed, and imaging performance is compared with other available 3T and 7T arrays.