Acquisition of human multislice MR images at 8 Tesla.

Abstract

The purpose of this work was to acquire high quality multislice MR images from the human brain at 8 Tesla (T). Initial images were acquired with an 8 T/80 cm magnet designed and manufactured by Magnex Scientific (Abingdon, England). Images were acquired using volume RF coils operating at 340 MHz. A torque-free head gradient insert was utilized to spatially encode the spins. Images were acquired from the human head using gradient-recalled echo pulse sequences. Ultra high frequency (UHF) MR images have been obtained from the human head that display both excellent signal/noise ratio and image quality. The power required to obtain the 8 T images was much less than expected based on the trend obtained at lower fields. In this work, we have demonstrated that it is possible to obtain high quality multislice images from the human brain at 8 T. These images display the phenomenal potential for imaging at UHF and reveal that none of the stumbling blocks advanced by the MR community for an 8 T project (RF penetration, dielectric effects, specific absorption rate problems, RF power requirements) proved to be a limitation.