Validation and Performance Assessment of a Preclinical SiPM-Based SPECT/MRI Insert

A preclinical insert for small animal simultaneous SPECT and MR imaging, in particular for imaging mouse brains, is presented. It consists of ten static magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-compatible gamma cameras based on tiles of silicon photomultipliers readout by a multichannel ASIC and coupled to 5 cm <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\boldsymbol \times $ </tex-math></inline-formula> 5 cm CsI(Tl) scintillators and to an MRI-compatible multipinhole collimator. Calibration and image reconstruction algorithm are illustrated. Mutual compatibility is demonstrated along with imaging performance that is comparable with other non-MR micro-SPECT systems: 0.9 mm tomographic spatial resolution across a transverse field of view of 15.6 mm, 12% energy resolution (at 140 keV), and 1105 cps/MBq sensitivity. Experimental results with phantoms (glass capillaries of 290 <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$ \mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> diameter and a mini Derenzo) are presented.

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