MRI system RF coil assembly with a birdcage transmit only coil and a pseudo-chain-link receive only coil array

An RF coil assembly of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system, comprising:

• a birdcage transmit-only coil having a substantially cylindrical shaped defined by one or more rungs and one or more end rings;
• and
• a multi-channel receive-only phased array coil comprising a plurality of ring-shaped receive-only coils, wherein the receive-only coils are connected to each other in a pseudo-chain-link configuration to form a substantially cylindrical shape, each of the plurality of ring-shaped receive-only coils comprises arc-shaped segments, and the arc-shaped segments include inductive and capacitive segments,
• wherein said multi-channel receive-only phased array coil is shorter than and located coaxially inside a space defined by said one or more rungs of said cylindrical transmit-only coil and wherein said multi-channel receive-only phased array coil is spaced a predetermined distance apart therefrom.