Challenges in Small Animal Noninvasive Imaging

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Abstract
The current status and challenges of small animal noninvasive imaging are briefly reviewed. The advantages of noninvasive studies on living animals versus postmortem studies are evaluated. An argument is advanced that even in postmortem situations, noninvasive imaging may play an important role in efficiently characterizing small animal phenotypes as well as pathology. Issues of data interpretation under anesthetized conditions in live animal studies are also reviewed. Five imaging technologies are discussed briefly: magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy, ultrasound, computer-assisted tomography, positron emission tomography, and optical imaging. The structural and physiological information content of these different modalities is reviewed along with the ability of these techniques to scale down for use in small mammals such as mice and rats. In general, it was found that most of these technologies scale favorably to the study of small mammals, generally providing more physiological information than when used on the larger humanscale. This finding suggests that these types of small mammal imaging capabilities will play a very significant role in the full utilization of these important animal models in biomedical research.