A relatively low-cost scintigraphic imaging system is being developed that is both capable of successful operation in the small-animal environment and able to carry out the full range of nuclear cardiology data acquisition and processing procedures associated with contemporary human studies. The system, with parallel hole collimation for image formation, consists of a NaI (TI) crystal coupled to a single position- sensitive photomultiplier tube; analog electronic modules to compute the position of each scintillation event; custom-designed correction circuitry for normalization of certain photomultiplier characteristics; and a Macintosh II personal computer equipped with a commercial software/hardware package designed for nuclear medicine image acquisition, processing, analysis, and display.
