University of Minnesota

Lance DelaBarre

Kamil Ugurbil

Anand Gopinath

Pierre-Francois Van De Moortele

Carl J Snyder

Can E Akgun

John Thomas Vaughan

Gregor Adriany

Heather Diane Orser

Jinfeng Tian

John Strupp

Peter M Andersen

Michael G Garwood

Steen Moeller

Emad S Ebbini

J Thomas Vaughan, Jr

Patrick Bolan

Xiaoping Wu

J Thomas Vaughan

Christopher C Olson

Gregor Adiany

Myung Kyun Woo

Russell L Lagore

Jerahmie Radder

Chris E Olson

An antenna apparatus for a radio frequency (RF) coil to transmit signals to and to receive signal from a subject in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system includes a distal surface facing away from the subject, a proximal surface facing towards the subject, a high permittivity material (HPM) having a shape, and an antenna coupled to the HPM and positioned on the proximal surface such that the antenna is positioned between the HPM and the subject.

Antenna apparatus including high permittivity materials (HPM) for radio frequency (RF) coils

A magnetic resonance system is disclosed. The system includes a transceiver having a multichannel receiver and a multichannel transmitter, where each channel of the transmitter is configured for independent selection of frequency, phase, time, space, and magnitude, and each channel of the receiver is configured for independent selection of space, time, frequency, phase and gain. The system also includes a magnetic resonance coil having a plurality of current elements, with each element coupled in one to one relation with a channel of the receiver and a channel of the transmitter. The system further includes a processor coupled to the transceiver, such that the processor is configured to execute instructions to control a current in each element and to perform a non-linear algorithm to shim the coil.

High field magnetic resonance

Systems and methods for beamforming algorithms for transmit-receive parallel magnetic resonance imaging ('pMRI') applications are described. For any transmit configuration (e.g., using a single or multiple transmit elements) a weighted sum of the complex image data from each receiver is formed with a spatially-varying weighting. The weighting factor is obtained by solving an optimal refocusing problem at a set of points in the image space, which can include all the pixels in the image. The optimal refocusing of the transmit-receive configuration accounts for the spatially-varying SNR in deriving the coefficients of the weighted sum at every image pixel.

System and method for parallel magnetic resonance image reconstruction using digital beamforming

In one illustrative embodiment, a radio frequency (RF) coil is disclosed. The RF coil may include a plurality of transmission line elements, wherein at least one of the plurality of transmission line elements may have at least one dimension different than a dimension of another one of the plurality of transmission line elements. In some cases, each of the transmission line elements may include a signal line conductor and a ground plane conductor separated by a dielectric.

Three dimensional RF coil structures for field profiling

A method and system for performing MRI and NMR spectroscopy that improves the dynamic range of the received signal by using adiabatic RF pulses for spin excitation rather than for spin inversion. The preferred adiabatic RF excitation produces a spatially varying phase across the slab, and a sharp slab profile. The phase variation is divided up by a phase-encoding gradient into voxels having a phase variation that is negligible over the width of the voxel. The phase variation in the slab-select direction is, on the whole, large enough that the peak amplitude of the received signal is reduced and the signal width broadened. This reduces the dynamic range required of the analog to digital converter used in a NMR system. A NMR system suitable for carrying out the methods of the invention is also disclosed.

Method and system for NMR using adiabatic RF pulses producing spatially quadratic phase

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St. Anthony, MN, United States of America

Lance DelaBarre