Metamaterial head coil for Ultra High Field MRI

ended

M-ONE project aims to demonstrate a breakthrough innovative MRI coil for brain imaging at 7 Tesla (7T) enabling a homogeneous and better quality of the image. Starting from the promising results of the M-CUBE FET-OPEN project n°736937 (MetaMaterial antenna for ultra-high field MRI), the young SME Multiwave Technologies, coordinating the M-ONE project, will with its interdisciplinary consortium (CEA, AMU-Fresnel Institute and UCLouvain) develop a prototype of a MRI head coil that will enable the first artefact-free entire brain images, hence reaching TRL6 at the end of the project. There is a race to a highly competitive global position in ultra-high field (UHF) MRI. For brain images, the UHF allows a better understanding of brain mechanism and hence a better diagnostic of brain disease. Nevertheless, some issue of radio frequency field inhomogeneities appears at 7T on transmit magnetic field B1+ images. They are translated on brain imaging by three dark areas on brain images, the two temporal lobes and the cerebellum, making diagnosis either impossible or non-conclusive in these regions. During the M-CUBE project, two technologies based on metamaterials have been established to homogenize the brain images. Some partners of the M-CUBE project that constitutes the M-ONE consortium decided to combine these two patented technologies taking the best of each one in order to develop the M-ONE coil. The main objective of the M-ONE is to develop a 7T metamaterial head coil with the best B1+ homogeneity on the market with an equivalent or higher signal-to-noise-ration that the standard 7T head coil. To achieve these coil characteristics, the 7T metamaterial head coil 1Tx/32Rx will be constituted of a metamaterial birdcage coil in transmission (1Tx) combined with a receive array coil (32Rx). This innovation will place a European SME, Multiwave Technologies, at the pole position of the global MRI Market.