Abstract
Small-animal physiology studies are typically complicated, but the level of complexity is greatly increased when performing live-animal X-ray imaging studies at synchrotron and compact light sources. This group has extensive experience in these types of studies at the SPring-8 and Australian synchrotrons, as well as the Munich Compact Light Source. These experimental settings produce unique challenges. Experiments are always performed in an isolated radiation enclosure not specifically designed for live-animal imaging. This requires equipment adapted to physiological monitoring and test-substance delivery, as well as shuttering to reduce the radiation dose. Experiment designs must also take into account the fixed location, size and orientation of the X-ray beam. This article describes the techniques developed to overcome the challenges involved in respiratory X-ray imaging of live animals at synchrotrons, now enabling increasingly sophisticated imaging protocols.
Highlights
X-ray imaging is widely used to non-invasively reveal internal body structures, and can provide better spatial resolution than other non-invasive methods
Since air/tissue interfaces provide such strong contrast with synchrotron phase-contrast X-ray imaging (PCXI), and because our work has focused on respiratory tract imaging, this manuscript will focus on imaging of the lung parenchyma and conducting airways
We have found that rat/mouse/rabbit pup reduces the relative phase effects at a given distance lung imaging is best with a propagation distance of around 2 m (Preissner et al, 2018)
Summary
X-ray imaging is widely used to non-invasively reveal internal body structures, and can provide better spatial resolution than other non-invasive methods. In the last two decades, new methods of phase-contrast X-ray imaging (PCXI) have been developed, which can reveal those weakly attenuating features that make up the rest of the body These PCXI methods are sensitive to interfaces between soft tissue and air, which means that the lungs and airways can be clearly visualized. Small pixels mean that a visually imperceptible movement of only a few micrometres can result in motion blur across a number of pixels These difficulties are addressed by high-flux synchrotron X-ray sources, which are capable of providing very high intensity, small-area X-ray beams compared with conventional X-ray sources (Suzuki et al, 2004). The techniques described have been developed at the SPring-8 synchrotron in Japan, at the Imaging and Medical Beamline (IMBL) at the Australian Synchrotron, and at the Munich Compact Light Source (MuCLS) in Germany
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