Patent ID: 7155274

Claim:
An optical CT scanner for small laboratory animals, comprising: a) a housing having a vertical through opening through which a test subject is passed through during a scanning session; b) said housing including a peripheral slot disposed transversely through the perimeter of said opening; c) a movable horizontal table disposed through said opening, said table being split with a horizontal slot aligned with said peripheral slot; d) a scanning head rotatable about said opening, said scanning head including a light beam directed toward said peripheral slot, said scanning head including a plurality of collimators directed toward said peripheral slot, said scanning head including a plurality of main photodetectors to detect said light beam after passing through the test subject and said collimators; e) a perimeter photodetector adapted to provide perimeter data of the test subject during a scanning session; f) an electrical circuit to amplify and digitize the output from said photodetectors; and g) a first computer programmed to reconstruct an image of the test subject from the output of said circuit.