Abstract
BackgroundMagnetic resonance is a major preclinical and clinical imaging modality ideally suited for longitudinal studies, e.g. in pharmacological developments. The lack of a proven platform that maintains an identical imaging protocol between preclinical and clinical platforms is solved with the construction of an animal scanner based on clinical hard- and software.MethodsA small animal magnet and gradient system were connected to a clinical MR system. Several hardware components were either modified or built in-house to achieve compatibility. The clinical software was modified to account for the different field-of-view of a preclinical MR system. The established scanner was evaluated using clinical QA protocols, and platform compatibility for translational research was verified against clinical scanners of different field strength.ResultsThe constructed animal scanner operates with the majority of clinical imaging sequences. Translational research is greatly facilitated as protocols can be shared between preclinical and clinical platforms. Hence, when maintaining sequences parameters, maximum similarity between pulses played out on a human or an animal system is maintained.ConclusionCoupling of a small animal magnet with a clinical MR system is a flexible, easy to use way to establish and advance translational imaging capability. It provides cost and labor efficient translational capability as no tedious sequence reprogramming between moieties is required and cross-platform compatibility of sequences facilitates multi-center studies.
Highlights
Magnetic resonance is a major preclinical and clinical imaging modality ideally suited for longitudinal studies, e.g. in pharmacological developments
Since the adoption of the three Rs principle [5] into the European Directive 210/63/EU, medical imaging has become a key technique in translational research as “it provides a unique opportunity for studying disease from onset in real time, in a quantitative way and non-invasively
The development of a dedicated small animal Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine using clinical software presents a major step in bridging this gap for truly translational research
Summary
Magnetic resonance is a major preclinical and clinical imaging modality ideally suited for longitudinal studies, e.g. in pharmacological developments. While small rodent imaging can be carried out on human MRI scanners, dedicated small animal systems display performance benefits such as higher temporal and spatial resolution [8]. These dedicated systems usually operate with vendor specific software and require the reimplementation of MR sequences to facilitate translational imaging studies. In addition to the tedious reprogramming of the MRI sequences in another programming environment, this approach is prone to creating mismatching sequences and creating experimental discrepancies, which reduce translational validity That this is problematic is obvious from early reports on—e.g. compare [9] for a discussion on errors in T 2 measurements due to different sampling strategies and differences in commercial implementations of multi-echo sequences. The development of a dedicated small animal MRI machine using clinical software presents a major step in bridging this gap for truly translational research
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