SUPERCONDUCTING RECEIVER COILS FOR SODIUM MAGNETIC-RESONANCE-IMAGING

We present the results from sodium magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) ex periments using high-temperature superconducting (HTS) receiver coils. Sodium imaging has been shown to have great potential for the assessm ent of cell integrity but suffers from a substantially lower signal-to -noise ratio (SNR) than that of hydrogen imaging. The use of an HTS re ceiver coil was found to significantly increase the SNR relative to an equivalent copper receiver coil at room temperature. The SNR gains af forded by HTS coils can also be used to decrease the imaging time.