SNR Optimization of MION FMRI in the Anaesthetized Monkey Using an 8-Channel PA-Coil and Accelerated Imaging

Thomas Janssens¹, Wim Vanduffel¹, Hauke Kolster¹

In high-resolution awake monkey fMRI studies contrast agents (MION) are used to improve CNR compared to BOLD measurements. MION, however, decreases SNR significantly. To mitigate this issue, we use an 8-channel coil, accelerated data acquisition, and regularized SENSE reconstruction. In addition to a factor of 1.5 gain in SNR in cortex due to the increased sensitivity of the PA coil, we show that for accelerated imaging a minimization of TE and TR leads to an additional gain factor of 1.6 in SNR, to a total of 2.4 above a single loop coil, which can be used to further increase resolution.