Design study of an MRI compatible ultra-high resolution SPECT for in vivo mice brain imaging

This paper presents the design study of an MRI compatible, ultra-high resolution SPECT system. This system consists of multiple ultra-high resolution energy-resolved photon counting (ERPC) CdTe detectors that are currently development. This detector is based on a novel readout ASIC that is roughly 1.1times2.2 cm² in size and has a 32times64 array of 350times350 um² pixels. A prototype detector was tested inside a 4.7 Tesla MRI scanner for simple pinhole imaging. The results obtained have demonstrated the feasibility of simultaneous acquisition of SPECT and MRI data. Extensive Monte Carlo simulation was performed to evaluate a number of system configurations.