ABSTRACT
A major strength of positron emission tomography (PET) is the ability to noninvasively quantify biological or physiological processes of interest. In the heart, PET techniques have been developed to quantify myocardial perfusion, substrate metabolism, and neuronal function. The advent of small animal PET holds the promise of performing the same studies in rodents facilitating our understanding of alterations in gene expression to relevant phenotypes of human disease. The first hurdle in obtaining quantitative data, in particular in mice, is the development of animal handling methods that result in minimal trauma to the animals. The quantification of the tracer kinetics within the rodent heart utilizing small animal PET and the corrections applied due to confounding factors such as the partial volume and spillover effects have been extensively examined with the use of phantoms. Deriving blood and myocardial time activity curves from region of interest placement on dynamic PET images are an attractive method approach because of its noninvasive nature.
