A 16-Channel Dense Array for in Vivo Animal Cortical MRI/fMRI on 7T Human Scanners

Xiaotong Zhang, Jialu Zhang, Yang Gao, Meizhen Qian, Shuxian Qu, Zhiyan Quan, Miao Yu, Xiaoming Chen, Yueming Wang, Gang Pan, Gregor Adriany, Anna Wang Roe

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of the present study was to fabricate a novel RF coil exclusively for visualizing submillimeter tissue structure and probing neuronal activity in cerebral cortex over anesthetized and awake animals on 7T human scanners. Methods: A novel RF coil design has been proposed for visualizing submillimeter tissue structure and probing neuronal activity in cerebral cortex over anesthetized and awake animals on 7T human scanners: a local transmit coil was utilized to save space for auxiliary device installation; 16 receive-only loops were densely arranged over a 5 cm-diameter circular area, with a diameter of 1.3 cm for each loop. Results: In anesthetized macaque experiments, 60 μm T2∗-weighted images were successfully obtained with cortical gyri and sulci exquisitely visualized; over awake macaques, bilateral activations of visual areas including V1, V2, V4, and MST were distinctly detected at 1 mm; over the cat, robust activations were recorded in areas 17 and 18 (V1 and V2) as well as in their connected area of lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) at 0.3 mm resolution. Conclusion: The promising brain imaging results along with flexibility in various size use of the presented design can be an effective and maneuverable solution to take one step close towards mesoscale cortical-related imaging. Significance: High-spatial-resolution brain imaging over large animals by using ultra-high-field (UHF) MRI will be helpful to understand and reveal functional brain organizations and the underlying mechanism in diseases.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number9209128
Pages (from-to)1611-1618
Number of pages8
JournalIEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering
Volume68
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - May 1 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Manuscript received May 13, 2020; revised July 29, 2020 and September 10, 2020; accepted September 23, 2020. Date of publication September 29, 2020; date of current version April 21, 2021. This work was supported in part by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFA0701400), in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 81701774, 61771423, 31627802, and 81430010, in part by Zhejiang Lab (2018EB0ZX01), and in part by the Key-Area Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province (2018B030333001). X. Zhang, J. Zhang, Y. Gao, and M. Qian contributed equally to this work. (Corresponding authors: Xiaotong Zhang; Yueming Wang.) Xiaotong Zhang is with the Interdisciplinary Institute of Neuroscience and Technology, Key Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering of Ministry of Education, and the School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, 310029 Hangzhou, China (e-mail: [email protected]).

Publisher Copyright:
© 1964-2012 IEEE.

Keywords

  • Non-human primate
  • RF coil
  • cortical imaging
  • fMRI
  • ultra-high-field MRI

Center for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR) tags

  • MRE
  • P41

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