title: Characterization of a rotating slat collimator system dedicated to small animal imaging.
abstract: Some current investigations based on small animal models are dedicated to functional cerebral imaging. They represent a fundamental tool to understand the mechanisms involved in neurodegenerative diseases. In the radiopharmaceutical development approach, the main challenge is to measure the radioactivity distribution in the brain of a subject with good temporal and spatial resolutions. Classical SPECT systems mainly use parallel hole or pinhole collimators. In this paper we investigate the use of a rotating slat collimator system for small animal brain imaging. The proposed prototype consists of a 64-channel multi-anode photomultiplier tube (H8804, Hamamatsu Corp.) coupled to a YAP:Ce crystal highly segmented into 32 strips of 0.575 × 18.4 × 10 mm(3). The parameters of the rotating slat collimator are optimized using GATE Monte Carlo simulations. The performance of the proposed prototype in terms of spatial resolution, detection efficiency and signal-to-noise ratio is compared to that obtained with a gamma camera equipped with a parallel hole collimator. Preliminary experimental results demonstrate that a spatial resolution of 1.54 mm can be achieved with a detection efficiency of 0.012% for a source located at 20 mm, corresponding to the position of the brain in the prototype field of view.
authors.affiliation: Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien, UMR 7178-CNRS/IN2P3 and UDS, Strasbourg, France. frederic.boisson@ires.in2p3.fr
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Boisson
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Bekaert
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: El Bitar
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wurtz
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Steibel
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Brasse
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D051379:Mice; D057054:Molecular Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation*; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D016011:Normal Distribution; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D012399:Rotation; D055114:X-Ray Microtomography