Development of a realistic human spine phantom to mimic static B0 field inhomogeneity in the cervical spinal cord

Anthropomorphic phantoms could facilitate testing of novel MRI methods. This is especially important for spinal cord imaging at 7T, which is severely affected by local B0 field inhomogeneity due to susceptibility differences between tissues, particularly between bone and soft tissues. Here we built a 3D-printed model of vertebrae C3-C5, which was included in a spherical phantom. Measured field maps of the phantom were compared with simulations, showing similar features in the field distortion. The phantom also exhibited a spatially periodic pattern of signal drop-out around the intervertebral junctions in multi-echo GRE, similar to what is commonly observed in in-vivo data.