Image alignment for single-cell imaging of macrophage in the mouse brain using 11.7T MRI

Macrophage is one of white blood cells, and plays an important role of the immune system. Tracking the single macrophage cells in vivo will be a powerful tool for immunology studies. State-of-the-arts imaging using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) enables us to acquire images of 3-D dynamic single macrophage cells in vivo. However, due to motion artifacts and magnetic field fluctuations, a post-processing is required to observe macrophage cells. This paper proposes an image analysis method for 11.7T animal MRI images of macrophages in the mouse brain. The method adjusts the motion artifacts by a rigid image registration technique, and calibrates MR signal intensity fluctuation by using an optimization technique. The method was applied to mouse brain MR images, and the results were validated by observers.