Abstract
The presence of motion artifacts is a typical problem in thoracic imaging. However, synchronizing the respiratory cycle with computed tomography (CT) image acquisition can reduce these artifacts. We currently employ a method of in vivo respiratory-gated micro-CT imaging for small laboratory animals (mice). This procedure involves the use of a ventilator that controls the respiratory cycle of the animal and provides a digital output signal that is used to trigger data acquisition. After inspection of the default respiratory trigger timing, we hypothesized that image quality could be improved by moving the data-acquisition window to a portion of the cycle with less respiratory motion. For this reason, we developed a simple delay circuit to adjust the timing of the ventilator signal that initiates micro-CT data acquisition. This delay circuit decreases motion artifacts and substantially improves image quality.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 4163-4172 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Physics in medicine and biology |
Volume | 49 |
Issue number | 17 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Sep 7 2004 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Radiological and Ultrasound Technology
- Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging