“A case for non-invasive, awake, nonanesthetized, unrestrained imaging”

For neurological conditions, the ability to image brain function during certain physiological conditions is important in elucidating developmental, behavioral, and disease state conditions. Accomplishing this entails imaging a subject in an awake and alert state, but this has its challenges. Primarily, the blurring effect of subject motion during imaging studies is a limiting factor. Until now, the options available to minimize this have been restricted to the use of chemical, e.g. anesthetics, and/or physical restraints such as attaching head immobilization hardware to minimize subject motion induced blurring. Because both physical and chemical restraints perturb normal brain function, the results thus obtained are biased. Furthermore, the plethora of available anesthesia and the varying imaging protocols make it difficult to compare study results both inter- and intra-study. Current efforts towards near-normal state, awake imaging will be presented along with preclinical results obtained from imaging mice.