Dual-Mode Optical-MR Microscopy with Uniplanar Gradient Coils

Andrey V. Demyanenko¹, Shuyi Nie¹, Yun Kee¹, Marianne Bronner-Fraser¹, Julian Michael Tyszka¹

Magnetic resonance microscopy offers unique complementary information to optical microscopy in basic biological and clinical applications. The integration of optical microscopes with MR imaging hardware is becoming increasingly popular and we present here a dual-mode MR and visible light optical microscope targeted towards applications in developmental biology and embryology. The instrument consists of a uniplanar three-axis gradient module and planar RF transceiver coil with a MR-compatible CCD optical microscope focused at the center of the gradient target volume via a planar mirror. Simultaneous optical and MR imaging of live Xenopus laevis embryos resulted in images of the dorsal embryonic surface with complementary imaging of internal morphological development over periods longer than 12 hours.