Eight-channel transceiver array for combined head and neck imaging at 7 Tesla

Combined full brain and neck MRI has been proven inevitable in diagnosis of variety of neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. High spatial resolution and signal-to-noise ratio provided by the ultra-high field MRI systems (>7T) could be valuable in identification of such subtle morphologies which are not noticeable at standard MRI systems. Current state-of-the-art requires change of coil for imaging either brain or C-spine or equipped with 16-channel transmission capability. This work presents the design and validation of novel neurovascular transceiver array with 8 channels (industry standard) for combined head and neck imaging at 7T.