Christopher J. Wargo1, Malcolm J. Avison1, John C. Gore1
1Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Nashville, TN, USA
Parallel receive coils provide benefits in obtained SNR and enable rapid imaging techniques such as SENSE to be applied. This approach has been extended to parallel transmit of RF with benefits such as accelerated excitation to improve spatial selection, and B1 inhomogeneity correction. In this abstract, we describe the modification of an existing parallel receive array to operate as a multi-channel transceive system for 9.4 T animal studies. A significant SNR improvement is observed in the rat brain when compared against a volume coil and the receive only configuration with volume coil transmission.