A Numerical Co-Simulation Framework for Interspecies Dual-Subject Preclinical RF Coil Design

초록

This study proposes a co-simulation framework for optimizing and validating design parameters prior to preclinical functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies. The primary objective of this study was to establish a face-to-face fMRI platform for investigating social interactions between rats and/or mice. Conventional hardware setups for single-species imaging often result in suboptimal signal uniformity and sensitivity when applied to interspecies scenarios. To address this challenge, a two-stage co-simulation framework is proposed. The first stage uses electromagnetic simulations to optimize geometry-dependent radiofrequency (RF) coil designs, and the second simulates magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) signals to evaluate image performance and field homogeneity across different coil configurations and animal pairings. A range of RF coil geometries, such as the birdcage, loop, and fish-trap types, with different designs and dimensions, were modeled to maximize the B1-field strength and uniformity across the brain volumes of two rodents while maintaining compatibility with the available preclinical MRI system, which consists of a single-transmit channel. The simulation results indicated that, for the rat-rat combination, a mediumsized birdcage coil generated the strongest B1-field; for the mouse-mouse pair, the medium-sized fish-trap coil offered the best performance; and for the rat-mouse pair, a medium-sized loop coil achieved the most uniform B1-field and balanced image intensity across the brain regions of interest. This simulation-based optimization strategy provides a reliable and efficient framework for designing and evaluating RF coils before in vivo experiments. It can also define the design parameters optimized for dual-species fMRI to ensure consistent and balanced signal performance across rodent models in future applications.

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