Abstract #4281

Imaging the Whole Life Span of a Zebrafish with Magnetic Resonance Microscopy (MRM) Using a Standard Bore 850 MHz System

Thomas Neuberger¹,², Tatjana Neuberger¹, Darin Clark³, Victoria Braithwaite⁴,⁵, Keith Cheng³

¹Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, United States; ²Department of Bioengineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, United States; ³Department of Pathology, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, United States; ⁴School of Forest Resources, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, United States; ⁵Department of Biology, Pennsylvania State University, Univerity Park, PA, United States

The zebrafish is now widely recognized as a key model organism in biological research. Our study demonstrates that MRI can image the zebrafish in detail across its whole life span with an isotropic resolution of up to 8 microns. To perform these studies a standard bore 20 tesla system was utilized. Despite restricted space, we achieved a throughput of more than 60 specimens of early developmental stages. As the high resolution and contrast to noise ratio permits the identification of small details, we suggest that MRI could be a valuable tool to quantify the progression of disease in the zebrafish.