微型CT系统适用的心肺运动检测新方法(英文)

NEW APPROACH TO DETECT CARDIAC-PULMONARY MOTION FOR MICRO-CT SYSTEM

提出了一种非侵入式的心肺门控技术以改善图像分辨率。该方法基于动物的心肺运动实时地产生门控信号,并采用改进的零交叉数法实现对R波的检测,通过热电偶感受动物鼻气流的温度变化以判断其呼吸时相。该门控技术即使对0.03 kg左右的小鼠,也能准确产生其在自由呼吸状态下的门控信号。除了非侵入性,与其他现存的门控技术相比,占用更少的空间和成本,可应用于微型CT系统和其他任何需要检测动物心肺运动的系统。几组测试结果表明,所提出的心肺门控能够产生所需信号,并改善图像分辨率。

Non-invasive cardiac-pulmonary gating is proposed to improve the imaging resolution. It produces signals based on the cardiac-pulmonary motion of an animal in real-time. The system with the non-invasive gating consists of a digital signal processor （DSP）, an electrocardiography （ECG） detection circuit and a thermoeouple circuit. An enhanced R wave detection algorithm based on zero crossing counts is used to adjust the low sample frequency associated with the respiratory rate of an animal. The thermocouple recognizes the respiration phase by sensing the temperature changes of the nasal airflow of an animal. The proposed gating can accurately generate the gating signal for freely breathing mice （weight of around 0.03 kg）, and its respiratory signal is too weak to be detected. Apart from non-invasiveness, compared with other existing gating techniques, it occupies minimal space at lower cost. Actually, it can be used in micro-computed tomography （CT） and other systems needed to detect the cardiac-pulmonary motion. Several tests validate that the proposed cardiac-pulmonary gating can generate the gating signal as required. By using the gating technique, the image resolution is improved.