Experiments were performed on a GE Signa Excite 1.5T scanner with a custom eight-channel upper-airway coil, which had four channels on either side of the jaw. The coil elements were arranged to offer diverse sensitivity in the superior-inferior and anterior-posterior directions. It provides high sensitivity over all upper-airway articulators, including the lips, tongue, velum, epiglottis, glottis, and pharyngeal wall (14 (link)).
Gradient echo–based multishot interleaved spiral sequences (field of view = 20 cm2; slice thickness [Δz] = 6mm; readout time [Tread] = 2.5 ms; repetition time [TR] = 6.004 ms; echo time = 0.8 ms; flip angle = 150; receive bandwidth = ±125 kHz) were implemented at different spatial resolutions, while making maximum use of gradients (40 mT/m amplitude and 150 mT/m/ms slew rate). All data were acquired by a real-time interactive imaging platform (RT-Hawk; Heart Vista Inc., Los Altos, CA, USA) (34 (link)).
Gradient echo–based multishot interleaved spiral sequences (field of view = 20 cm2; slice thickness [Δz] = 6mm; readout time [Tread] = 2.5 ms; repetition time [TR] = 6.004 ms; echo time = 0.8 ms; flip angle = 150; receive bandwidth = ±125 kHz) were implemented at different spatial resolutions, while making maximum use of gradients (40 mT/m amplitude and 150 mT/m/ms slew rate). All data were acquired by a real-time interactive imaging platform (RT-Hawk; Heart Vista Inc., Los Altos, CA, USA) (34 (link)).
