Functional imaging of the rat brain: A 3-D approach

The 2-deoxyglucose labelling method provides simultaneous functional maps of all components of the central nervous system in unanesthesized laboratory animals under basal or various physiological, pharmachological and pathological conditions. This paper presents the image processing techniques used to associate brain metabolic pattern and function with neuroanatomy and to objectively compare the metabolic activity of various structures. Specifically, we described the techniques used for three-dimentional (3-D) reconstruction of the brain and spinal cord of rats, their 3-D visualization and the registration of the volumes reconstructed from images of histological slides and autoradiographs.