Capabilities
- Designed for small animal imaging (mouse & rat)
- ‘Conventional’ MR images based on T1, T2 or proton density. These are used to show anatomical detail.
- Blood flow in arteries or veins (magnetic resonance angiography or MRA)
- Blood perfusion through tissue, giving cerebral blood flow and cerebral blood volume maps
- Blood volume in tissue using contrast agents
- Molecular diffusion of water through tissue such as white matter tracts (tractography and diffusion tensor imaging or DTI)
- Relative degrees of bound and unbound water (magnetisation transfer contrast or MTC)
- Tissue movement, such as motion of the heart to yield measures of ejection fraction and myocardial wall motion
- Tissue temperature
- fMRI: Oxygenation of blood (BOLD) to show areas of brain activated by stimuli
- fMRI: cerebral blood volume changes
- resting-state fMRI
- Changes in blood perfusion through tissues in response to pharmacological intervention (phMRI)
- Intracellular pH of tissue