Development of high-resolution ex vivo single-photon and positron emission tomography

Molecular imaging aims for the visualisation, characterisation, and quantification of biological processes in humans and other living systems at the molecular and cellular level. For today’s patient care, molecular imaging allows for (early) detection and characterisation of disease, efficient planning and assessment of treatments, and...

3D Tracking of Radioactive Particles in Small Animals

Fast and precise in vivo tracking of nanoparticles or single cells could provide better understanding of drug and stem cell delivery. Present SPECT with traditional collimators lack sensitivity to achieve sufficiently high frame rates. In this project a multi-slit SPECT system with stationary detectors was designed to track nanoparticles with a...

U-SPECT-BioFluo: An integrated radionuclide, bioluminescence, and fluorescence imaging platform

Background: In vivo bioluminescence, fluorescence, and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging provide complementary information about biological processes. However, to date these signatures are evaluated separately on individual preclinical systems. In this paper, we introduce a fully integrated bioluminescence-fluorescence...

Image acquisition and reconstruction in multi-pinhole emission tomography

Nowadays, tomographic imaging techniques are inseparable from modern medical practice as they allow non-invasive 3-dimensional visualization of the interior of a patient in order to e.g. establish a medical diagnosis, or to monitor disease progression and the effects of disease treatment. Next to clinical use, tomographic imaging techniques are...

Effects of attenuation map accuracy on attenuation-corrected micro-SPECT images

Background In single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), attenuation of photon flux in tissue affects quantitative accuracy of reconstructed images. Attenuation maps derived from X-ray computed tomography (CT) can be employed for attenuation correction. The attenuation coefficients as well as registration accuracy between SPECT and CT...

High-resolution EM-CCD scintillation gamma cameras

The development of medical imaging techniques has dramatically changed clinical practice and biomedical science in the 20th century. Nuclear Medicine imaging techniques reveal the function of organs and tissues in vivo with the aid of radioactively labeled tracer molecules. These techniques, such as Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography ...

Targeted multi-pinhole SPECT

Purpose: Small-animal single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) with focused multi-pinhole collimation geometries allows scanning modes in which large amounts of photons can be collected from specific volumes of interest. Here we present new tools that improve targeted imaging of specific organs and tumours, and validate the effects of...

Articulated Planar Reformation for Change Visualization in Small Animal Imaging

The analysis of multi-timepoint whole-body small animal CT data is greatly complicated by the varying posture of the subject at different timepoints. Due to these variations, correctly relating and comparing corresponding regions of interest is challenging. In addition, occlusion may prevent effective visualization of these regions of interest....

Articulated Whole-Body Atlases for Small Animal Image Analysis: Construction and Applications

Purpose Using three publicly available small-animal atlases (Sprague–Dawley rat, MOBY, and Digimouse), we built three articulated atlases and present several applications in the scope of molecular imaging. Procedures Major bones/bone groups were manually segmented for each atlas skeleton. Then, a kinematic model for each atlas was built: each...

Ultra-high-resolution CCD-based gamma detection

For the development and improvement of multi-pinhole SPECT systems, high-resolution gamma cameras can be essential. Electron-multiplying charge-coupled devices (EMCCDs) have a high resolution and sensitivity and therefore can be extremely useful for application in photon-counting scintillation gamma cameras. The scintillation crystal captures...

Absolute quantitative total-body small-animal SPECT with focusing pinholes

Purpose: In pinhole SPECT, attenuation of the photon flux on trajectories between source and pinholes affects quantitative accuracy of reconstructed images. Previously we introduced iterative methods that compensate for image degrading effects of detector and pinhole blurring, pinhole sensitivity and scatter for multi-pinhole SPECT. The aim of...

3-D Rat Brain Phantom for High-Resolution Molecular Imaging: Experimental studies aimed at advancing understanding of human brain disease and malfunction, and of behavior problems, may be aided by computer models of small laboratory animals

With the steadily improving resolution of novel small-animal single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and positron emission tomography devices, highly detailed phantoms are required for testing and optimizing these systems. We present a three-dimensional (3-D) digital and physical phantom pair to represent, e.g., cerebral blood flow,...

Atlas-driven scan planning for high-resolution Micro-SPECT data acquisition based on multi-view photographs: A pilot study

Highly focused Micro-SPECT scanners enable the acquisition of functional small animal data with very high-resolution. To acquire a maximum of emitted photons from a specific structure of interest and at the same time minimize the required acquisition time, typically only a small subvolume of the animal is scanned that contains the organs of...

U-SPECT-II: An Ultra-High-Resolution Device for Molecular Small-Animal Imaging

We present a new rodent SPECT system (U-SPECT-II) that enables molecular imaging of murine organs down to resolutions of less than half a millimeter and high-resolution total-body imaging. Methods: The U-SPECT-II is based on a triangular stationary detector set-up, an XYZ stage that moves the animal during scanning, and interchangeable cylindric...

Atlas-driven scan planning for high-resolution micro-SPECT data acquisition based on multi-vew photographs: A pilot study

Highly focused Micro-SPECT scanners enable the acquisition of functional small animal data with very high-resolution. To acquire a maximum of emitted photons from a specific structure of interest and at the same time minimize the required acquisition time, typically only a small subvolume of the animal is scanned that contains the organs of...

Integrated visualization of multi-angle bioluminescence imaging and micro CT

This paper explores new methods to visualize and fuse multi-2D bioluminescence imaging (BLI) data with structural imaging modalities such as micro CT and MR. A geometric, back-projection-based 3D reconstruction for superficial lesions from multi-2D BLI data is presented, enabling a coarse estimate of the 3D source envelopes from the multi-2D BLI...

Imaging dynamics of organs and drugs at sub-half-MM and sub-minite resolution using focusing pinhole spect

We demonstrate new technologies for SPECT imaging with unsurpassed resolution in mice and rats. Results of the imaging of living animals will be shown. In addition development of detectors for next generation systems with an even higher resolution will be shown.