MRI Techniques and New Animal Models for Imaging the Brain

This chapter describes how large animal models can be used to improve our knowledge of neuroscience and brain disorders. Various animal models have been used in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Rodents and non-human primates are the most commonly used, but they present a number of drawbacks; for example, the rodent brain is smaller than that of humans and thus a higher spatial resolution is required. In addition, there are significant differences between human and rodent brain morphology: for example the rodent brain is smooth, whereas that of the human is gyrencephalic. By contrast, the brain of large mammals such as the pig, sheep or goat is gyrencephalic and has greater similarities with the human brain (Lind et al. 2007). The Göttingen minipig is increasingly used in experimental neuroscience, to investigate brain disorders and is a suitable alternative model to non-human primates for economic, ethical and genetical homogeneity reasons.