PHASE - SENSITIVE AND DUAL - ANGLE RADIOFREQUENCY MAPPING IN 23 NA MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING by Steven

PHASE-SENSITIVE AND DUAL-ANGLE RADIOFREQUENCY MAPPING IN NA MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING Steven P. Allen Department of Physics and Astronomy Bachelor of Science Many diagnostic applications in sodium magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) require accurate flip angle mapping. In search for a mapping technique that performs well in sodium MRI, we evaluated the low signal-to-noise ratio performance of the dual-angle and phase-sensitive techniques. Monte Carlo simulations in MATLAB and measurements of a phantom demonstrate the phasesensitive technique’s superior performance in low SNR environments. The phase sensitive technique has a lower standard deviation of measurement and obtains higher quality flip angle maps than the dual-angle technique. Further, in vivo maps of the human breast demonstrate the phase-sensitive technique’s clinical feasibility