A comparison of coil loading and SNR for elliptical solenoidal coil vs. a tight fitting dome helmet coil for low field neuroimaging

Motivation: The narrow bandwidth of RF coils for low field MRI means that coils often require re-tuning between subjects due to different loading conditions. Goal(s): We compare the performance and loading effects of an elliptical solenoid and a dome helmet coil to see which coil is more sensitive to loadingApproach: The SNR and transmit efficiency of the two coil types are compared in when lightly loaded (phantom) and normally loaded (in-vivo) settingsResults: The elliptical solenoid coil has a substantially smaller frequency shift when loaded (~1kHz vs ~13kHz) and has superior SNR in-vivo compared to a tight -fitting dome helmet coil. Impact: We compare the performance of tight-fitting dome helmet coil to an elliptical solenoid coil and find that due to reduced loading the performance of the elliptical coil is superior in-vivo while having better frequency stability with differing loads.