High-Tech Hat for Brain-Scanning Rats

摘要

Rats don't like having their brains scanned any more than humans do, so studying their brains with positron emission tomography (PET) usually requires that they be asleep. Now researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York state have devel- oped a device called a Rat Conscious Animal PET (Rat-CAP) imager, which allows a rat to wear a scanner even while it moves around. The imager, described online in Nature Methods this week, will allow behavioral neuroscientists to study metabolic activity in the brain without using anesthesia, which alters bram chemistry and could misdirect experiments.