Monte Carlo simulation of the microPET FOCUS system for small rodents imaging applications

In this paper, the authors validated the microPET FOCUS modelling with GATE. The performances of this Monte Carlo platform were presented on voxelized rat brain phantom, specially for the simulation of realistic [C-11]Raclopride exam with a realistic modelling of the injected dose and acquisition time. These results are the consequence of complete installation of this Monte Carlo platform simulation on a cluster computing architecture. Finally, the authors showed a first preliminary approach to improve the quantitative analysis in rat brain dopaminergic studies with an implementation of corrections about the positron range and gamma accolinearity effects. In the future, these corrections could be included as priors in a maximum a posteriori reconstruction algorithm. Moreover, the simulation of whole body exams can be planned in order to optimize the quantitative analysis for small animal PET imaging