Quantitative Susceptibility Imaging of the Rat Brain Using a Dedicated Setup Allowing Different Orientations Along B0

Ludovic de Rochefort¹, Tian Liu², Martine Guillemiller¹, Diane Houitte¹, Yi Wang², Philippe Hantraye¹, Vincent Lebon¹

Neurodegenerative diseases can induce iron metabolism changes. Quantitative susceptibility mapping may be a way to map iron content in the brain. Recently, techniques based on processing the susceptibility induced phases have been developed. This is an ill-posed problem: from the induced magnetic field to the magnetic sources. Specific acquisition and reconstruction techniques are needed such as COSMOS (Calculation Of Susceptibility by Multiple Orientation Sampling) in which several orientations are scanned with respect to B0. Here, a setup is described to rotate rats in vivo and map the field in their brain. Preliminary susceptibility masp demonstrate feasibility.