3D Printed Ferret Cradle with Anesthesia and Commercial Coil Integration for Brain MRI at 7T

Motivation: Ferret brain imaging requires custom-built cradles to make acquisition feasible. Goal(s): Improve current female setup to accommodate male ferret size and achieve similar field of view coverage and fit as our previous live imaging acquisitions. Approach: We created 3D-printed anesthesia and cradle components in the female and male ferret. We used female and male skull phantoms to assess signal coverage and fit of our improved cradle design. Results: Measurements of male and female ferrets drove dimensional requirements for our cradle design. Additionally, cradle was tested for fit with commercial surface coil. Cradle design had comparable coverage of both male and female skull phantoms. Impact: Creating custom ferret cradle that integrates commercial-coils may benefit other researchers that are imaging animal models.