T-SPECT: a novel imaging technique for small animal research

We present a novel imaging technique based on the translation of the object through the field of view of one or more stationary multipinhole detectors. This new imaging method is called Translatory SPECT or T-SPECT. The benefits of T-SPECT lie in its simple mechanical design along with the potential for imaging otherwise inaccessible regions. The setup of various T-SPECT systems is described and results of numerous simulation studies are presented demonstrating the imaging capabilities of such systems. Specifically, we study T-SPECT with different detector arrangements and compare the performance of T-SPECT with that of SPECT with rotation (R-SPECT). We validate our simulation findings with results from an experiment in which we image a Jaszczak phantom using both R-SPECT and T-SPECT.