40-MHz annular array imaging of mouse embryos. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • Ultrasound biomicroscopy (UBM) has emerged as an important in vivo imaging approach for analyzing normal and genetically engineered mouse embryos. Current UBM systems use fixed-focus transducers, which are limited in depth-of-focus. Depending on the gestational age of the embryo, regions-of-interest in the image can extend well beyond the depth-of-focus for a fixed-focus transducer. This shortcoming makes it particularly problematic to analyze 3-D data sets and to generate accurate volumetric renderings of the mouse embryonic anatomy. To address this problem, we have developed a five-element, 40-MHz annular array transducer and a computer-controlled system to acquire and reconstruct fixed- and array-focused images of mouse embryos. Both qualitative and quantitative comparisons showed significant improvement with array-focusing, including an increase of 3 to 9 dB in signal-to-noise ratio and an increase of at least 2.5 mm in depth-of-focus. Volumetric-rendered images of brain ventricles demonstrated the clear superiority of array-focusing for 3-D analysis of mouse embryonic anatomy.

publication date

  • November 1, 2006

Research

keywords

  • Embryo, Mammalian
  • Ultrasonography, Prenatal

Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC1858655

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 33750825304

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2006.05.020

PubMed ID

  • 17112949

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 32

issue

  • 11