title: Non-contact small animal fluorescence imaging system for simultaneous multi-directional angular-dependent data acquisition.
abstract: We present a novel non-contact small animal fluorescent molecular tomography (FMT) imaging system. At the heart of the system is a new mirror-based imaging head that was designed to provide 360-degree measurement data from an entire animal surface in one step. This imaging head consists of two conical mirrors, which considerably reduce multiple back reflections between the animal and mirror surfaces. These back reflections are common in existing mirror-based imaging heads and tend to degrade the quality of raw measurement data. In addition, the introduction of a novel ray-transfer operator allows for the inclusion of the angular dependent data in the image reconstruction process, which results in higher image resolution. We describe in detail the system design and implementation of the hardware components as well as the transport-theory-based image reconstruction algorithm. Using numerical simulations, measurements on a well-defined phantom and a live animal, we evaluate the system performance and show the advantages of our approach.
authors: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, 351 Engineering Terrace Mudd building, 500 West 120th Street, New York, NY, 10027, USA.
authors: Jong Hwan
authors: JH
authors: Lee
authors: Department of Radiology, Columbia University Medical Center, 180 Fort Washington Avenue, New York, NY, 10032, USA.
authors: Hyun Keol
authors: HK
authors: Kim
authors: Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Columbia University Medical Center, 650 West 168th Street, New York, NY, 10032, USA.
authors: Chandhanarat
authors: C
authors: Chandhanayingyong
authors: Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Columbia University Medical Center, 650 West 168th Street, New York, NY, 10032, USA.
authors: Francis Young-In
authors: FY
authors: Lee
authors: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, 351 Engineering Terrace Mudd building, 500 West 120th Street, New York, NY, 10027, USA ; Department of Radiology, Columbia University Medical Center, 180 Fort Washington Avenue, New York, NY, 10032, USA ; Department of Electrical Engineering, Columbia University, 1300 S. W. Mudd Building, 500 West 120th Street, New York, NY, 10027, USA.
authors: Andreas H
authors: AH
authors: Hielscher
keywords: (170.0110) Imaging systems; (170.6280) Spectroscopy, fluorescence and luminescence; (170.6960) Tomography