SAMMI - Small Animal MRI/MRS Instrument

About the Instrument [PDF]

Our 7T Varian system is an actively shielded magnet with an inner diameter (ID) of 210 mm and equipped with gradient field strength of 44 gauss/cm and rise time of 120 µsec and interfaced to a Varian DirectDrive console. The console is configured with broadband capability (two 1kW broadband RF amplifier for low frequencies and 5 amp shim power supply) which provides multinuclear imaging/spectroscopic capabilities (ex. 23Na, 31P, 19F and 13C).

A couple of quadrature birdcage volume coils (72/119 mm and 38/108 mm) suitable for imaging of rats and mice are also available. New devices/coils are under construction.

BIRC facility has well equipped surgery area for preparing the animals and a wide variety of supporting equipments, i.e. anesthesia machines, MR compatible physiological monitors (cardiac /respiratory gating /temperature monitoring units) and heating pads.

Advanced MRI and MRS techniques in our system include a wide variety of non-invasive morphological, physiological, and biochemical and spectroscopic measures of small animals.

1. Relaxometric measurements (T1, T2 and T2* mapping)
2. Quantitative diffusion mapping (DWI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)
3. Quantization of vascular leakiness and permeability of tumor tissue using contrast agents
4. Spectroscopic imaging of 1H metabolites to monitor cellular response to therapy
5. 1H Single voxel spectroscopic measurements using PRESS/STEAM/LASER methods
6. Blood flow measurements using ASL (arterial spin labeling) technique
7. BOLD (blood oxygen level dependent contrast) measurements for fMRI studies

Khan Hekmatyar, Manager, 706-542-8387, hekmat@uga.edu