CARDIOVASCULAR disease is a leading cause of death in the US. A domina
nt disease mechanism is the buildup of atherosclerotic plaque in the c
arotid artery at the junction in the neck where the artery branches in
to two segments. Currently, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is being
used experimentally to study plaque samples that have been surgically
removed from the carotid artery.(1) However, conventional whole body i
maging systems suffer from low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), which resu
lts in poor image quality when applied to physically small samples suc
h as plaque. A custom transmit/receive antenna coil (or excitation coi
l) increases the SNR and improves image quality for small samples.