Presentation: P02023

Introduction and Purpose: Non-invasive imaging is increasingly used for drug development evaluations. A large expense for imaging is the cost of the MR scanning time. Limitations of study capacity or throughput is another problem as MRI systems are expensive to purchase and maintain. Furthermore, imaging with very high field, small bore systems limits the size of animals that can be scanned. We demonstrate that MR imaging using a human system, though at lower field strengths, offers significant advantages with flexibility for sample size and increased signal-to-noise can be obtained using LN2-cooled copper coils.

Methods: We have developed a series of small animal coils, both volume and surface coils tailored to small animal anatomy.

Discussion and Conclusions: High resolution images of whole animals and organs/tissues, both in vivo and ex vivo, can be obtained at 3T. High throughput imaging with high resolution can be obtained from multiple animals at once.

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