Nicola Martini1, Kilian Weiss2,
Peter Boesiger2, Dante Chiappino1, Sebastian Kozerke2
1Fondazione G. Monasterio
CNR-Regione Toscana, Massa, Italy; 2Institute for Biomedical
Engineering, University & ETH Zurich, Zurich,, Switzerland
This work investigates the use of phased array coils for navigator gated and ECG triggered cardiac 1H-MRS. A suitable reconstruction of cardiac MRS signals from multiple receiver elements is introduced with the aim of maximizing the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the combined signal. In vivo experimental results with 5-element and 32-element cardiac arrays are presented. The obtained spectral quality allowed visualizing both the myocardial triglyceride peak and the creatine resonance, demonstrating the feasibility of cardiac 1H-MRS using large coil arrays.