Open-Field Spect for Conscious Small Animal: a Prototype System

Project: National Science and Technology CouncilNational Science and Technology Council Academic Grants

Project Details

Abstract

In 2013, President Obama of USA launched Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative to target a wide variety of brain disorders. The initiate equips the researcher with the fundamental support to develop new imaging and mapping system for the brain activity to treat brain disease like Alzheimer. In recent years, technology in molecular image advance rapidly. Molecular imaging allows the evaluation of brain function in molecular levels. Among various molecular image techniques, positron emission tomography (PET) and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) are the most important tools. Both PET and SPECT were widely used to study the brain function through the detection of the activity distribution of injected radiopharmaceuticals. Due to their functional imaging capability, both PET and SPECT are widely used in animal for drug development. However, imaging of small animals generally requires anesthesia, and anesthetic agents may significantly confound the interpretation of animal brain studies using PET or SPECT. Brookhaven National Lab was the first to develop a RATCAP (Rat Conscious Animal PET) imaging device for the awake rat. West Virginia University also developed a Wearable PET Helmet and was granted by NIH as one of the BRAIN initiates. Compared to PET, the SPECT isotopes have a longer half-life and possess various gamma energies. Their usage in nuclear medicine is more popular than PET. However, the application of SPECT for awake small animals is limited. The main bottleneck is that small animal SPECT usually requires a closed and heavy multiple-pinhole collimator that hinder optical motion tracking of the animal's head. In this research project, we propose a novel inverted-collimator imaging technique (or called beam stopper imaging). This technique may become a breakthrough for the development of awake small animal SPECT. This project is scheduled for three years. The tasks of the research project are as follows: (1) Proof of concept study for the proposed inverted-collimator imaging; (2) Development of single-scan inverted-collimator reconstruction method; (3) Construction of an independent inverted-collimator insert; (4) Development of motion compensation reconstruction method for inverted-collimator imaging. Through the implementation of this project, we will build a prototype of open-filed SPECT scanner for the conscious small animal. This scanner will be of great benefit for the drug development and neurodegenerative diseases research.

Project IDs

Project ID:PC10901-0224
External Project ID:MOST108-2314-B182-029-MY2
StatusFinished
Effective start/end date01/08/2031/07/21

Keywords

  • Single Photon Emission Tomography
  • Conscious Small Animal
  • Molecular Imaging

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