The ‘3-day course of MRI pre-clinical imaging workshop’ was held on May 2018

The ‘course of MRI pre-clinical imaging workshop’ was held at National Brain Mapping Laboratory on May 6,9 and 10, 2018. The course was held in 3 days.

On the first day (may 6, 2018), the participants only familiarized with the theory, and after passing the test from the Theory (70% of the test score) on the second and third day (May 9 and 10, 2018), they were practically learned the topics. In order to maximize the efficiency of the workshop, the capacity of only 15 people was considered.

Lecturers:

• Dr. Mostafa Haj Nasrallah (Head of Animal Science Research Center and Laboratory of Royan Research Institute)
• Engineer Mojtaba Barzegar (expert in magnetic resonance imaging department at the National Brain Mapping Lab)

Topics:

Theoretical section:

• Instructions for working with animals
• Familiar with the challenges of working with animals
• Anatomy of common animals
• How to prepare an animal for an MRI test
• Familiarity with working with the animal during anesthesia
• Familiarity with the necessary hardware for imaging (coils, devices, etc.)
• Familiarity with physics of MRI imaging
• Familiarity with common pulse sequences
• Contrast in MRI imaging
• Qualitative assessment of acquired images
• Identify the artifacts in images
• Introducing image analysis softwares for working with animals

Practical section:

• Perform preparation of mice, rats and monkeys for test
• Perform anesthesia on the animals listed above
• Perform the pulse sequences on the animal
• Assessing quality control of acquired images
• Introducing solutions to existing challenges