Design, simulation and test of surface and volume radiofrequency coils for 13C Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy

Hyperpolarized 13C Magnetic Resonance (MR) is a promising technique for in vivo non-invasive assessment of metabolism in humans. Despite the considerable signal increase provided by hyperpolarization techniques, the low molar concentration of derivate 13C metabolites gives rise to technological limits in terms of data quality. The development of dedicated radio frequency coils, capable of providing a large field of view with high signal-to-noise ratio data, is thus a fundamental task. This work describes the design, simulation, and test of a surface and a volume coil, both designed to be integrated with a clinical scanner for hyperpolarized 13C studies in small animal models, with the purpose to provide a detailed characterization and comparison of their performance. In particular, coil inductance was evaluated with analytical calculation, while the magnetostatic theory was employed for coils magnetic field pattern estimation. Workbench tests permitted us to characterize coil performance in terms of quality factor and efficiency. Additionally, this Tutorial summarizes the acquisition experience for the reconstruction of 13C spectroscopic maps in phantom using the two designed coils and a 3 T MR clinical scanner. We believe that this Tutorial could be interesting for graduate students and researchers in the field of magnetic resonance coil design and development, especially for 13C studies.