Background: Anesthesia may alter the cellular components contributing to the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) signal intensities. Developing awake animal models to evaluate cerebral function has grown in importance.
Objective: To investigate a noninvasive strategy for dynamic MRI (dMRI) of awake rabbits during carbogen challenge.
Methods: A nonmetallic assistive device with a self-adhering wrap secure procedure was developed for the head fixation of awake rabbits. Multi-shot gradient echo echo-planar imaging sequence was applied for the dMRI on a 1.5 T clinical MRI scanner with a quadrature head coil. The carbogen challenge pattern was applied in a sequence of air - carbogen - air - carbogen - air. Twelve scans were performed for each block of carbogen challenge. T2-weighted fast-spin echo and T1-weighted gradient echo sequences were performed before and after dMRI to evaluate the head position shifts. The whole dMRI scan time was about 30 minutes.
Results: The position shift of 8 rabbits in the x-and y-direction was less than 3%. The average MRI signal intensities (SI) from the 8 rabbits during carbogen challenge was fitted well using exponential growth and decay functions. The average MRI SI increase due to carbogen inhaling was 1.51%.
Conclusions: The proposed strategy for head dMRI on an awake rabbit during carbogen challenge is feasible.
Keywords: Rabbit brain; assistive device; awake; fixation; magnetic resonance imaging; self-adhering wrap.