Physiological effects of a habituation procedure for functional MRI in awake mice using a cryogenic radiofrequency probe

摘要

Background: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in mice is typically performed under anesthesia due to difficulties in holding the head of awake mice stably with a conventional three-point fixation method that uses a tooth-bar and earplugs. Although some studies have succeeded in fMRI in awake mice by attaching a head-post on the skull, this cannot be applied to fMRI using a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) cryogenic MRI-detector, CryoProbe, because it covers the head of a mouse closely.