Abstract
ObjectiveThe purpose of this study is to design an anthropomorphic heterogeneous head phantom that can be used for MRI and other electromagnetic applications.Materials and methodsAn eight compartment, physical anthropomorphic head phantom was developed from a 3T MRI dataset of a healthy male. The designed phantom was successfully built and preliminarily evaluated through an application that involves electromagnetic-tissue interactions: MRI (due to it being an available resource). The developed phantom was filled with media possessing electromagnetic constitutive parameters that correspond to biological tissues at ~297 MHz. A preliminary comparison between an in-vivo human volunteer (based on whom the anthropomorphic head phantom was created) and various phantoms types, one being the anthropomorphic heterogeneous head phantom, were performed using a 7 Tesla human MRI scanner.ResultsEcho planar imaging was performed and minimal ghosting and fluctuations were observed using the proposed anthropomorphic phantom. The magnetic field distributions (during MRI experiments at 7 Tesla) and the scattering parameter (measured using a network analyzer) were most comparable between the anthropomorphic heterogeneous head phantom and an in-vivo human volunteer.ConclusionThe developed anthropomorphic heterogeneous head phantom can be used as a resource to various researchers in applications that involve electromagnetic-biological tissue interactions such as MRI.
Highlights
Phantoms are numerical and/or physical models that represent the characteristics of some specified human anatomy [1,2,3,4]
The developed anthropomorphic heterogeneous head phantom can be used as a resource to various researchers in applications that involve electromagnetic-biological tissue interactions such as MRI
While electromagnetic numerical modeling has been the greatest resource to understand and analyze the interaction of electromagnetic fields and biological tissue(s) [8,9,10,11,12,13], in the last few years, experimental phantoms are increasingly becoming a useful resource in conjunction with EM modeling [5, 14]
Summary
Phantoms are numerical and/or physical models that represent the characteristics of some specified human anatomy [1,2,3,4]. Recent studies demonstrate how researchers use anthropomorphic phantoms in numerical and experimental studies as one of the many resources that help investigate the behavior of the interactions of electromagnetic (EM) fields and biological tissue(s) at varying electromagnetic frequencies [7]. While electromagnetic numerical modeling has been the greatest resource to understand and analyze the interaction of electromagnetic fields and biological tissue(s) [8,9,10,11,12,13], in the last few years, experimental phantoms are increasingly becoming a useful resource in conjunction with EM modeling [5, 14]. While commercially available homogenous phantoms are suitable resources for analysis and evaluation of lower field MRI systems, they are not typically viable for characterizing the electromagnetic-biological interactions at higher field strengths. The electromagnetic fields produced by MRI radiofrequency (RF) antennas become much more dependent on their interactions with biological tissues due to the higher operational frequency and the RF wavelength is shortened [16]
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