Simultaneous in vivo magnetic resonance imaging and radioactive measurements with the β-MicroProbe

Purpose: Multimodal instrumentation is a new technical approach allowing simultaneous and complementary in vivo recordings of complementary biological parameters. To elucidate further the physiopathological mechanisms in intact small animal models, especially for brain studies, a challenging issue is the actual coupling of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques with positron emission tomography (PET): it has been shown that running the technology for radioactive imaging in a magnet alters the spatiotemporal performance of both modalities. Thus, we propose an alternative coupling of techniques that uses the β-MicroProbe instead of PET for local measurements of radioactivity coupled with MRI. Methods: We simultaneously recorded local radioactivity due to [18F]MPPF (a 5-HT1A receptor PET radiotracer) binding in the hippocampus with the β-MicroProbe and carried out anatomical MRI in the same anaesthetised rat. Results: The comparison of [18F]MPPF kinetics obtained from animals in a magnet with kinetics from a control group outside the magnet allowed us to determine the stability of tracer biokinetic measurements over time in the magnet. We were thus able to show that the β-MicroProbe reliably measures radioactivity in rat brains under an intense magnetic field of 7 Tesla. Conclusion: The biological validation of a β-MicroProbe/MRI dual system reported here opens up a wide range of future multimodal approaches for functional and pharmacological measurements by the probe combined with various magnetic resonance technologies, including anatomical MRI, functional MRI and MR spectroscopy. © 2007 Springer-Verlag