Iconeus One 
The only Functional Ultrasound system designed specifically for neuroscientists

Iconeus One can be configured to provide excellent results whatever your animal is up to – whether it’s awake or asleep, freely moving or resting. This means that you’re not limited to studying anesthetized animals, as is the case with fMRI. 

And we’re familiar with devising setups for imaging of a wide range of animals. As well as rats and mice, we’ve developed probes for primates, guinea pigs, ferrets, marmosets, birds and even reptiles. You name the animal model, and we’ll work out an ideal configuration.

Many brain-imaging technologies are limited to a small field of view, but Iconeus One opens up new perspectives.

Using our plane-wave ultrasound probes, a 2D image across a section of the brain can be obtained in about 400 milliseconds, allowing you to create videos showing changes in cerebral blood volume (CBV) even over short timescales. In addition, by using our scanning platform and XYZ+R robot, you can build up slices into a complete 3D image of a brain in as little as 20 seconds. 

In mouse studies, Iconeus One also reduces the need for pre-scanning preparation of the cranium, as the brain can be imaged directly through the skull. Other animals usually need an ‘acoustic window’ to be created, by thinning the cranium or replacing it with an acoustically transparent polymer.

The ultra-fast, plane-wave approach used by Iconeus One results in tens of thousands of ultrasound echoes being received per second. This means that multiple echoes can be combined to give a high signal-to-noise ratio, while still providing a high image framerate. The exact figures will vary depending on your application, but typically you’d be able to resolve hemodynamic changes of only 2% without averaging over different trials.

The spatial resolution typically possible with Iconeus One is as good as, or better than, the best fMRI instrument – for example, our standard 15 MHz probe generates individual volume-pixels (‘voxels’) that are 100 × 100 μm square, and 400 μm thick. That’s enough, for example, to detect signals from small vessels with blood velocities as low as 1 mm/s.

The 100 µm spatial resolution possible with our standard Iconeus One instrument is actually just the beginning. You can now go much further with our ultrasound localization microscopy (ULM) option, which allows you to achieve resolutions as low as 5 µm, and quantify blood velocities in the mm/s range.

ULM is available as an option for Iconeus One – just ask us about it when you request a quote or book a demo.

Iconeus One is ready to use straight out of the box. You won’t waste your time on programming, and you don’t need to be an expert in ultrasound imaging to get impressive results. With just a few days’ training from our technical team, and with the help of software presets for rapid acquisition and processing, you’ll be generating new insights faster than you thought possible.

And because you’ll have your own system, in your own lab, there’ll be no need to book time slots on the fMRI down the corridor – your Iconeus One system will be ready for you to use, whenever and wherever you need it.

We’ve also integrated the Allen Mouse Brain Atlas into the Iconeus One software. This allows automated, accurate identification of brain regions, and opens up exciting options such as live probe positioning, standardized acquisition of large datasets, and more.