16.4T Vertical Wide Bore Animal MR Imager

描述(由申请人提供)：我们建议购买一台16.4特斯拉大口径垂直磁共振(MR)小动物扫描仪，配备多线圈接收能力。总体目标是将肯尼迪·克里格研究所(KKI)的F.M.柯比研究中心升级为最先进的超高场生物医学成像设施。这是必要的，以满足KKI、约翰·霍普金斯大学(JHU)和其他州的一些大学的许多研究人员的需求，他们目前拥有25笔由NIH资助的赠款(见第7C节的表1)，这些研究人员的几个目标可以从该仪器改进的技术能力中受益。这些研究人员目前使用JHU的4.7T、9.4T和11.7T动物设施进行脑、癌症和心脏研究，这些研究与大脑发育的解剖显微成像、基于图像的表型、使用和不使用造影剂的分子成像、细胞跟踪、波谱(MRS)、定量生理学MRI以及MR图像对比度的研究和改进有关。这种建议的仪器将为用户提供以下好处：1)由于更高的磁场(成比例)和由于多线圈相控阵检测能力的可用性，提高了组织信噪比(SNR)。这种SNR的增加将允许扫描时间(动物吞吐量)随相对SNR增加的平方而减少，或允许空间分辨率(体素大小)随增加而线性增加，或者允许在保持时间和分辨率相同的情况下添加额外的图像形态。这对本申请中列出的所有研究都很重要。2)并行成像能力。对于当前SNR足够的应用，体内采集速度和动物吞吐量可以增加几个因素。3)增加了光谱研究和使用频率选择性饱和的成像研究的化学位移分离，例如那些使用化学交换饱和转移(CEST)对比的研究。4)增加了基于磁感度的对比度，用于研究生理学(BOLD效应)，以及用于分子成像研究的跟踪磁性标记的细胞或化合物。5)松弛时间T1的增加，这将增加标记转移研究的敏感性，如动脉自旋标记和CEST成像。这台16.4T小型动物扫描仪对于我们机构中由NIH资助的研究人员继续进行高质量的最先进研究至关重要，这些研究人员由我们的研究资源和体内细胞和分子成像中心(ICMIC)提供的国家设施提供服务。公共卫生相关性：小动物现在被广泛用作中枢神经系统(CNS)疾病的临床前模型，大量信息可以从对中风、癌症和神经退行性疾病(如帕金森氏病、多发性硬化症、阿尔茨海默氏症等)的非侵入性病理研究中获得。此外，分子成像领域的最新发展为实时监测细胞和分子事件提供了非侵入性技术，可用作纳米粒子MRI探针和遗传标记。这笔赠款的研究人员正在研究疾病的机制，并正在开发核磁共振方法，以更好地治疗和诊断这些疾病，所获得的知识直接转化为人类疾病的治疗和监测。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We propose to acquire a 16.4 Tesla wide-bore vertical magnetic resonance (MR) small- animal scanner equipped with multi-coil receive capability. The overall goal is to upgrade the F.M. Kirby Research Center at the Kennedy Krieger Institute (KKI) to a state-of-the- art very-high field biomedical imaging facility. This is necessary to address the needs of many investigators at the KKI, Johns Hopkins University (JHU), and some universities from other states who presently have 25 NIH-funded grants (see Table 1 in section 7C) with several aims that can strongly benefit from the improved technical capabilities of this instrument. These investigators currently use the 4.7T, 9.4T, and 11.7T animal facilities at JHU for brain, cancer, and cardiac studies related to anatomical microimaging of brain development, image-based phenotyping, molecular imaging with and without contrast agents, cell tracking, spectroscopy (MRS), quantitative physiological MRI, and the investigation and improvement of MR image contrast. This proposed instrumentation will provide the following benefits for the users: 1) increased tissue signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) due to the higher field (proportional) and due to the availability of multicoil phased array detection capabilities. Such an increase in SNR would allow either a reduction in scan time (animal throughput) with the square of the relative SNR increase, or an increase in spatial resolution (voxel size) linear with the increase, or addition of extra image modalities when keeping time and resolution the same. This is important for all studies listed in this application. 2) parallel imaging capability. For applications where current SNR is sufficient, in vivo acquisition speed and thus animal throughput can be increased by several factors. 3) increased chemical shift separation for spectroscopy studies and for imaging studies using frequency selective saturation, such as those employing chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) contrast. 4) increased susceptibility-based contrast for studying physiology (BOLD effect) and for tracking cells or compounds that are magnetically labeled for molecular imaging studies. 5) increase in relaxation time T1, which will increase sensitivity for label transfer studies, such as arterial spin labeling and CEST imaging. This 16.4T small-animal scanner is essential for continued high-quality state-of-the-art research for the NIH-funded researchers at our institutions who are served by the national facilities provided by our Research Resource and the In Vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging Center (ICMIC). PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Small animals are now broadly used as pre-clinical models for central nervous system (CNS) diseases and a tremendous amount of information can be gained from non invasive studies of pathologies such as stroke, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases (e.g. Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's, etc.). In addition, recent developments in the field of molecular imaging have provided noninvasive technologies to monitor in real time cellular and molecular events using as nano-particle MRI probes and also genetic markers. The investigators in this grant are studying the mechanisms of disease and are developing MRI methods to better treat and diagnose them and the knowledge gained is directly translational to human disease treatment and monitoring.