Design and feasibility study of Gamma-Cube #x2014; a high resolution and high sensitivity SPECT system for in vivo mouse brain studies

摘要

In this paper, we report the design and feasibility study of a high resolution and high sensitivity SPECT (Gamma-Cube) system for mouse brain imaging. The system consists of six high resolution gamma ray detectors, arranged in cubic geometry, and a truncated spherical aperture with multiple pinholes, which offers a relatively uniform 4π angular coverage around the object. The proposed Gamma-Cube system is based on the so-called energy-resolved photon-counting (ERPC) detector that consists of multiple pixilated CdTe detectors bump-bonded to ERPC readout ASICs that are 1.1×2.2cm in size with a pixel pitch of 350μm×350μm. In this study, we used Monte Carlo simulation to optimize system geometry and multiple-pinhole patterns for detection of a tiny amount of radioactivity in mouse brain.