Fast magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging using RF coil arrays

Abstract

Conventional Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopic Imaging (MRSI) suffers from both low signal-to-noise (SNR), as well as long acquisition times. The development of high-fidelity gradient coils has opened opportunities for fast k-space encoding schemes that are already used in structural imaging. At the same time, receive-coil arrays using 4 and 23 channels have been developed and reported to produce improved SNR over conventional quadrature detection by single coils. Fast spectroscopic imaging algorithm using spiral k-space trajectories and multiple-channel coil arrays is proposed in order to overcome the long acquisition-time limitations of conventional MRSI.