Functional ultrasound for high-resolution whole-brain imaging of awake animals

As beta tester, I had the opportunity to follow the maturation of Iconeus One, from an early version to the commercial product. Right from the beginning I was fascinated how little effort it takes to obtain activation maps of the mouse brain. No long preparation time, just sedation and fixation of the animal, and the experiment can start. Resolution is amazing – even small mouse brain regions are covered by several voxels. Brain regions can automatically be identified, and the software efficiently guides the positioning of the sensor head. This makes fUS an ideal tool for routine studies of the effects of compounds on brain network activity.

Functional ultrasound is an amazing technology, taking neuroimaging to a whole new level. Coming from the MRI world, the small footprint, open setup and sensitive miniature sensor of fUS unlocks capabilities that were previously unavailable for us and our clients. As early adopters of the technology with a prototype system, communication, support and technical expertise are critical for successful implementation and development. I’m happy to say that Iconeus team has never failed to deliver that at max. Thank you!

Iconeus’s functional ultrasound system is a remarkable new advancement for in vivo functional cerebral blood volume (CBV) imaging. For the first time, it allowed us to do (on a counter-top) accurate and fast brain imaging of small animals, which revealed cerebral microvascularization of brain circuits. We were quite impressed with the videos of the microvascular system lighting up in the ferret brain. Even more impressive was the depth and resolution of these images and the ability to track their activity across several days or even weeks. In short order, functional ultrasound has become a vital part of almost all our projects – testimony to its versatility and flexibility.

The Iconeus system is a powerful technology to assess brain functioning and connectivity in living rodents. We’ve been using it for three years, and have already published data demonstrating functional alteration in a perinatal model of white matter damage. It’s also valuable to assess the benefits conferred by neuroprotective molecules. We can’t wait to develop new paradigms using freely moving animals and 3D/4D brain imaging using Iconeus One! The technical support and teaching from the Iconeus team are extremely well done, making Iconeus One a real plug-and-play device that should take its place in any imaging platform for small animals. Thanks to all the team!