Parallel RF transmission with eight channels at 3 Tesla.

Spatially selective RF waveforms were designed and demonstrated for parallel excitation with a dedicated eight-coil transmit array on a modified 3T human MRI scanner. Measured excitation profiles of individual coils in the array were used in a low-flip-angle pulse design to achieve desired spatial target profiles with two- (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) k-space excitation with simultaneous transmission of RF on eight channels. The 2D pulse excited a high-resolution spatial pattern in-plane, while the 3D trajectory produced high-quality slice selection with a uniform in-plane excitation despite the highly nonuniform individual spatial profiles of the coil array. The multichannel parallel RF excitation was used to accelerate the 2D excitation by factors of 2-8, and experimental results were in excellent agreement with simulations based on the measured coil maps. Parallel RF transmission may become critical for robust and routine human studies at very high field strengths where B(1) inhomogeneity is commonly severe. (c) 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc.