Abstract #0169

Design Criteria of an MR-PET Array Coil for Highly Parallel MR Brain Imaging

Christin Y. Sander^1,2, Boris Keil², Ciprian Catana², Bruce R. Rosen^2,3, Lawrence L. Wald^2,3

¹Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA; ²A. A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, USA; ³Health Sciences & Technology, Harvard-MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA

The construction of a parallel phased array MR brain coil that is compatible with the state of the art simultaneous MR-PET Brain scanners requires unique material and design specifications. In this study, we evaluate the design criteria of a 32-channel MR-PET coil (including conductor materials, cable thicknesses and component placements with experiment and simulation) to improve SNR and parallel imaging of MR while minimizing the interference with 511 keV γ-ray detection from the PET camera.