PET Imaging with Motion Tracking

PET measurements were performed using the microPET Focus 220 small animal PET scanner (Preclinical Solutions, Siemens Healthineers, Knoxville, TN, USA). To track the motion, the MicronTracker Sx60 (ClaroNav Inc., Toronto, Canada) was used, as in [11 (link)]. The MicronTracker (MT) is a stereo-optical system which tracks preregistered planar markers, deriving the 6 degrees-of-freedom (i.e. the marker pose) from two simultaneously acquired but spatially offset images. It was used to track a small marker (2.2×1.7 cm) attached to the rat’s head, at a frequency of 25–30 Hz. The experimental setup is shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1

a The MicronTracker in front of the microPET scanner. The large marker attached to the front of the scanner is the reference marker used to aid in transforming from the MT coordinates to the microPET coordinates. b The head marker used in rat studies. c An unrestrained rat with an attached head marker inside a tube within the microPET. The catheter port can be seen between its shoulders. Figure reproduced with permission of IOP Publishing from [14 (link)]. Ⓒ Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine. All rights reserved