G Cao et al 2009 Phys. Med. Biol. 54 2323 doi:10.1088/0031-9155/54/8/005
G Cao1, Y Z Lee1,2, R Peng3, Z Liu1,7, R Rajaram3, X Calderon-Colon3, L An1, P Wang1, T Phan4, S Sultana3, D S Lalush5, J P Lu1,3 and O Zhou1,3,6
Show affiliationsCurrent commercial micro-CT scanners have the capability of imaging objects ex vivo with high spatial resolution, but performing in vivo micro-CT on free-breathing small animals is still challenging because their physiological motions are non-periodic and much faster than those of humans. In this paper, we present a prototype physiologically gated micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) scanner based on a carbon nanotube field emission micro-focus x-ray source. The novel x-ray source allows x-ray pulses and imaging sequences to be readily synchronized and gated to non-periodic physiological signals from small animals. The system performance is evaluated using phantoms and sacrificed and anesthetized mice. Prospective respiratory-gated micro-CT images of anesthetized free-breathing mice were collected using this scanner at 50 ms temporal resolution and 6.2 lp mm−1 at 10% system MTF. The high spatial and temporal resolutions of the micro-CT scanner make it well suited for high-resolution imaging of free-breathing small animals.
General scientific summary. Current commercial micro-CT scanners have the capability of imaging objects ex vivo with high spatial resolution, but performing in vivo micro-CT on free-breathing small animals is still challenging because their physiological motions are non-periodic and much faster than those of humans. We developed a prototype physiologically gated micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) scanner based on a novel carbon nanotube (CNT) field emission micro-focus x-ray source. The CNT x-ray source allows x-ray pulses and imaging sequences to be readily synchronized and gated to non-periodic physiological signals from small animals. The system performance is evaluated using phantoms and sacrificed and anesthetized mice. Prospective respiratory-gated micro-CT images of anesthetized free-breathing mice were collected using this scanner at 50 ms temporal resolution and 81 μm at 10% system MTF. The high spatial and temporal resolutions of the micro-CT scanner make it well suited for high-resolution imaging of free-breathing small animals.
Issue 8 (21 April 2009)
Received 5 August 2008, in final form 24 February 2009
Published 25 March 2009
G Cao et al 2009 Phys. Med. Biol. 54 2323
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