title: MRI and PET in mouse models of myocardial infarction.
abstract: Myocardial infarction is one of the leading causes of death in the Western world. The similarity of the mouse heart to the human heart has made it an ideal model for testing novel therapeutic strategies. In vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) gives excellent views of the heart noninvasively with clear anatomical detail, which can be used for accurate functional assessment. Contrast agents can provide basic measures of tissue viability but these are nonspecific. Positron emission tomography (PET) is a complementary technique that is highly specific for molecular imaging, but lacks the anatomical detail of MRI. Used together, these techniques offer a sensitive, specific and quantitative tool for the assessment of the heart in disease and recovery following treatment. In this paper we explain how these methods are carried out in mouse models of acute myocardial infarction. The procedures described here were designed for the assessment of putative protective drug treatments. We used MRI to measure systolic function and infarct size with late gadolinium enhancement, and PET with fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) to assess metabolic function in the infarcted region. The paper focuses on practical aspects such as slice planning, accurate gating, drug delivery, segmentation of images, and multimodal coregistration. The methods presented here achieve good repeatability and accuracy maintaining a high throughput.
authors.affiliation: Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Unversity of Cambridge.
authors.forename: Guido
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Buonincontri
authors.forename: Carmen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Methner
authors.forename: T Adrian
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Carpenter
authors.forename: Robert C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Hawkes
authors.forename: Stephen J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Sawiak
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Krieg
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003287:Contrast Media; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; D005682:Gadolinium; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D051379:Mice; D064847:Multimodal Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D009942:Organometallic Compounds; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography / Q000379:methods*; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals
chemical_list: D003287:Contrast Media; D009942:Organometallic Compounds; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; C090600:gadobutrol; D005682:Gadolinium