Cardiac MRI in Small Animals

Methods Mol Biol. 2018:1718:269-284. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-7531-0_16.

Abstract

Cardiac magnetic resonance (MR) imaging of mice is a valuable tool for the precise in vivo diagnosis and prognosis of heart defects. This detailed protocol describes the method of cardiac MR imaging in mice step by step. A series of MR images captures the contractile function of the mouse heart and post-processing of the image data yields morphometric parameters (myocardial mass, myocardial wall thickness, ventricular end-systolic and end-diastolic volume) as well as functional parameters (stroke volume and ejection fraction). This protocol may also serve as a starting point for MR imaging of rats, by using larger image dimensions (field-of-view) and MR hardware suitable for larger animals.

Keywords: Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR); Function; Heart; Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); Mouse.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Heart / physiopathology*
  • Heart Diseases / diagnosis*
  • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / methods*
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods*
  • Mice
  • Rats
  • Stroke Volume