A Theoretical Comparative Study of the Induced Fields Generated by Symmetric and Asymmetric Whole-Body Transverse Gradient Coils
A. Trakic, F. Liu, S. Crozier School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia Synopsis We have recently introduced the concept of whole-body asymmetric MRI systems [1]. In this theoretical study, we investigate the PNS characteristics of whole-body asymmetric gradient systems as compared to conventional symmetric systems. Recent experimental evidence [2] supports the hypothesis of transverse gradients being the largest contributor of PNS due to induced electric currents. Asymmetric head gradient coils have demonstrated benefits in the past [3, 4]. The numerical results based on an anatomically-accurate 2mm-human voxel-phantom NORMAN [6], show that asymmetric y-gradient is superior, in terms of reduced field induction, to its symmetric counterpart for typical patient orientations within the coil.