Researchers from the Netherlands and Russia have crafted a new metasurface-based technology designed to increase the local sensitivity of MRI systems on humans.
The metasurface consists of thin, copper resonant strips arranged periodically that are placed under a patient's head, enhancing the signal-to-noise ratio from the local brain region. The use of metasurfaces can help reduce image acquisition time, thus improving comfort for patients, or acquire higher resolution images for better disease diagnosis, according to the researchers from Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands and ITMO University in St. Petersburg, Russia.
A patient in an MRI system modified by metasurface. Image courtesy of ITMO University.The team attached the copper strips to a thin flexible substrate and integrated them with close-fitting receive coil arrays inside the MRI system. Doing so, the local sensitivity increased by 50%, and the metasurface could be used to increase the image resolution, according to the researchers. They published their results in Scientific Reports (10 May 2017).
