System performance Simulations of the RatCAP awake rat brain scanner

Author

Shokouhi, Sepideh ; Vaska, Paul ; Schlyer, David J. ; Stoll, Sean P. ; Villanueva, Azael, Jr. ; Kriplani, Aarti ; Woody, Craig L.

Author_Institution

State Univ. of New York, State Univ. of New York, Stony Brook, NY, USA

Volume

52

Issue

5

fYear

2005

Firstpage

1305

Lastpage

1310

Abstract

The capability to create high quality images from data acquired by the Rat Conscious Animal PET tomograph (RatCAP) has been evaluated using modified versions of the PET Monte Carlo code Simulation System for Emission Tomography (SimSET). The proposed tomograph consists of lutetium oxyorthosilicate (LSO) crystals arranged in 12 4 × 8 blocks. The effects of the RatCAPs small ring diameter (∼40 mm) and its block detector geometry on image quality for small animal studies have been investigated. Since the field of view will be almost as large as the ring diameter, radial elongation artifacts due to parallax error are expected to degrade the spatial resolution and thus the image quality at the edge of the field of view. In addition to Monte Carlo simulations, some preliminary results of experimentally acquired images in both two-dimensional (2-D) and 3-D modes are presented.

Keywords

Monte Carlo methods; brain; image resolution; image scanners; medical image processing; positron emission tomography; LSO crystals; PET Monte Carlo code simulation; RatCAP; block detector geometry; high quality images; rat brain scanner; rat conscious animal PET tomograph; small animal imaging; spatial resolution; system performance simulations; Animals; Brain modeling; Crystals; Degradation; Detectors; Geometry; Image quality; Monte Carlo methods; Positron emission tomography; System performance; SimSET; small animal imaging;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TNS.2005.858236

Filename

1546411