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This thesis describes the design, construction and testing of a dome coil. The dome coil is hemispherical in shape and is intended to be used within a set of hemispherical gradient coils in a seven tesla magnetic resonance imaging magnet. The dome coil has eight independent elements and is designed to be used for parallel transmission and reception. It is shown that the dome coil produces less specific absorption rate than a conventional birdcage coil and is suitable for head imaging. A study of travelling wave magnetic resonance imaging is also presented. In this study two different methods of generating a travelling wave (using a patch antenna and an end-fire helix antenna) are compared, and the power requirements and specific absorption rate of the travelling wave approach are considered. It is concluded that travelling wave magnetic resonance imaging is best performed using a local receive coil and with the travelling wave antenna placed at least 50 cm from the subject. All theory relevant to the design, construction, testing and use of these coils and antennas is also presented.

The work presented in this thesis describes the development and implementation of a number of ideas and methods that allow fMRI to be carried out using echo-planar imaging at ultra high field strength, despite the significant problems associated with this. In the first study, EPI is used to probe how the gradient echo (GE) and spin echo (SE) BOLD responses relate to the underlying neurological processes, whilst the brain is in both its active and resting states. These finding show that SE BOLD contrast is harder to detect but less localised to areas around large draining veins than GE BOLD contrast and thus potentially more localised to sites that represent true functional areas of activation. The second study describes how dynamic delta B0 mapping can be performed during fMRI experiments with a hyperoxic challenge in order to assess the magnitude and extent of delta B0 effects that arise due to susceptibility differences between air and tissue. Developing on this, this work describes the steps involved in the design and implementation of a dual echo GE/SE EPI sequence and how it can be used to enable off-resonance effects, such as image distortion and signal concentration/dilution, to be corrected on a dynamic basis for, simultaneously acquired, GE and SE data. The final study demonstrates how such a sequence can be used to detect resting state networks. Showing that the correspondingly low temporal separation of the GE and SE data allows GE and SE BOLD contrast mechanisms to be compared in a number of novels ways in different resting state networks.

Hyperpolarised 3He has been used extensively in the neutron community and for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the lungs. 129Xe has many desirable advantages compared to 3He for NMR, namely its chemical sensitivity, solubility, adsorption capability and atmospheric abundance. In this work we present the design and construction of a 129Xe spin exchange polariser that operates at gas pressures between 0.6 and 3 bar. The design incorporates a novel Volume Holographic Grating (VHG) spectrally narrowed, high power laser diode device as the optical pump source for a continuous gas flow cylindrical polarisation cell. Nuclear polarisations of 34 +/- 3 % are achieved in 129Xe gas. Magnetisation production factors in excess of 80 % cm^3 min^-1 are achieved using a pseudo batch-flow operation method. Major parameters affecting 129Xe gas polarisation are discussed and the first measurements of cell heating from laser light absorption by Rb vapour are made. Hyperpolarised 129Xe gas produced from our system is imaged inside a low field, whole body MRI scanner. NMR measurements from inside a human lung are made using hyperpolarised 129Xe. Preliminary work on dissolved solution NMR is presented as are studies on the feasibility of using hyperpolarised 129Xe for porosity characterisation of porous media in low magnetic fields.

The signal-to-noise ratio available in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)is determined by the static magnetic field strength, causing a continued drive toward higher fields to enable faster image acquisition at finer spatial resolution. The work in this thesis is primarily concerned with the development of sequences for Ultra High Field Magnetic Resonance Imaging (7T) which allow the acquisition of images with high spatial resolution for study of the structure and function of the brain. The methods developed here for high spatial resolution structural imaging allow the identification of regions of the cortex which exhibit layers of high myelin concentration within the cortical strip. This permits the investigation of the correspondence of functional regions in the visual cortex to their underlying structure 'in vivo'. A robust methodology for high resolution functional mapping over a restricted field of view is presented and the results of fMRI studies demonstrating 1 mm isotropic resolution in the primary somatosensory cortex S1 using this methodology are shown. BOLD responses to vibrotactile digit stimulation were investigated using a travelling wave paradigm to measure the topographic representation of the digits in S1 and an event related paradigm for characterization of the haemodynamic delay. A spin-echo EPI acquisition has been optimized and tested to compare the BOLD response in GE and SE echo planar images by employing visual and motor tasks. The specificity of the BOLD responses of SE and GE data was found to be similar using a travelling wave paradigm.

In this thesis the underlying mechanisms behind the phenomenon known as the BOLD response were investigated. Functional imaging of the brain relies on the oxygenation level of blood, therefore the relaxation properties of blood were measured at different oxygenations. The relaxation properties of blood are also modified by introduction of a paramagnetic contrast agent and are dependent on the static magnetic field of the MRI system. These dependencies were also characterised. This led to the discovery that the transverse relaxation rate is non-linearly related to contrast agent concentration. This result was confirmed by performing a Monte-Carlo simulation. A measurement of total cerebral blood volume (CBV) change, during neural activity, was performed at high temporal resolution (TR = 300 ms). This was achieved by infusing a contrast agent, whilst a visual stimulus was presented to the volunteer. This technique also provided an interesting and novel method to test models of the BOLD response. The temporal characteristics of the BOLD response were differentially effected by the contrast agent, reflecting the dependency of each feature on blood volume change. This allowed a qualitative understanding of the volume contribution to each of these characteristics to be gathered. Two models of the BOLD haemodynamic response were constructed to describe the contrast agent infusion experiment. Each model was developed from several existing models of the BOLD response, with the aim of comparing empirical and biomechanical model elements. As part of this work an existing model of BOLD signal change was extended to include the arterial and venous vasculature. Both models were separately fitted to the experimental total CBV and BOLD signal data. The results of fitting the data show that existing haemodynamic models cannot fully describe the measured results.