RF heating of conductive implants such as those in cardiac pacemakers and deep brain stimulation devices remains a major issue limiting access to MRI for hundreds of thousands of patients. Here we present a novel technique we call High-Dielectric Capacitive Bleeding of Current (HD-CBLOC) to develop an implanted lead with significantly reduced RF heating. The lead uses a high-permittivity insulating coating around the conductive wires to enable a distributed capacitive dissipation of RF currents along the length of the lead and thus reducing the energy deposition at the tip. Experiments show the configuration reduces heating by more than 15-fold during scans at 1.5 T. Simulations predict a similar effect at 3T and 7T.
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