A Multicenter Preclinical MRI Study: Definition of Rat Brain Relaxometry Reference Maps

Area of Science:

• Neuroimaging
• Veterinary Medicine
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Multicenter studies enhance statistical power in human and animal imaging.
• Standardization is crucial for pooling animal imaging data across institutions.
• Animal models are vital for understanding human diseases.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate the feasibility of a multicenter animal imaging study.
• To establish reproducible T1 and T2 mapping of the healthy rat brain at 7 Tesla.
• To quantify variability from data acquisition and processing in multicenter settings.

Main Methods:

• Forty rats' raw data and processing pipelines were shared across four imaging centers.
• T1 and T2 mapping of the rat brain at 7T was performed.
• Variability was assessed across two MR data providers and three fitting algorithms.
• Multi-atlas segmentation was conducted on two platforms.

Main Results:

• Differences between data providers were 2.21% for T1 and 9.52% for T2.
• Differences between processing pipelines were 1.04% for T1 and 3.33% for T2.
• The study quantified variability in relaxation time measurements.

Conclusions:

• Multicenter animal imaging is feasible, enabling robust statistical analysis.
• Standardized T1 and T2 maps of the healthy rat brain can be generated.
• These reference maps are valuable for future studies on animal models of pathology.