This proposal requests funds for an Aisys ventilation-anesthesia delivery and monitoring system to be used with a novel PET/CT imaging platform geared specifically towards the imaging of larger research animals such as non-human primates. This preclinical imaging system, based on the micro PET scanner and a clinical neuro CT scanner (CereTom), was initially developed by the investigators and the respective vendors to investigate response to chemotherapy in a non-human primate model of tuberculosis, and a system dedicated to this purpose is located in an animal biosafety level 3 (ABSL3) environment. The investigators have also upgraded a micro PET scanner sited in the University of Pittsburgh P.E.T. Facility to be a preclinical PET/CT available for other applications, for which the requested equipment is intended. As opposed to clinical PET/CT imaging of human subjects, where patient respiratory motion is a frequent problem, the use of controlled ventilation-anesthesia in preclinical imaging can minimize degrading effects in the PET images through the use of novel protocols. The result is intrinsically co-registered PET/CT images that are essentially free of respiratory motion artifacts. Achieving this requires a more sophisticated ventilation-anesthesia solution than that required for neuroimaging applications, where the goal is simply to maintain stable physiologic function. The Aisys system combines enhanced ventilation features, electronically controlled gas delivery and agent vaporization with anesthesia and vital signs monitoring and information management in a single integrated system. A disadvantage of PET data acquisition with standard ventilation protocols or free breathing is that only a fraction of the acquired data corresponds to any given phase of the respiratory cycle. This system will give us the ability to precisely control the form of the breathing duty cycle such that most of the time is spent at a known static state of inflation, which results in the majority f the acquired PET data corresponding to that state. The data not corresponding to this state may be rejected through respiratory gating or the images may be acceptable even without gating applied. Breath-hold CT images are acquired at the same level of inflation. The use of precision ventilation control is especially important for the micro PET/CereTom system given its high PET spatial resolution, as compared to clinical PET/CT systems, which may be obviated if a detailed structure of interest is blurred due to respiratory motion. The lung spirometry feature on the Aisys system can be used to evaluate global pulmonary function at the time of scanning to compliment the in vivo images obtained. The coupling of the requested system to the preclinical PET/CT system will further advance developments underway in: infectious and inflammatory lung diseases such as COPD, pulmonary arterial hypertension, novel influenzas, PET probe development, and transplantation science.
