Patent ID: 8482278

Claim:
A method facilitating magnetic resonance imaging measurements (=MRI) in a region of interest (=ROI) of a small animal using an MRI magnet system, the method comprising: (1) outside of the MRI magnet system carrying out the steps of: a) fixing an RF antenna to a slide; b) placing the small animal on a cradle that is configured for holding the small animal; c) placing the cradle and the small animal onto the slide; d) positioning, following steps a), b), and c), the cradle relative to the slide in order to align the small animal relative to the RF antenna thereby achieving precision alignment of the small animal relative to the RF antenna; e) placing, following step d), the small animal, the cradle, the RF antenna and the slide, as an integral unit, within the inside of the MRI magnet system in order to subsequently align the small animal and the RF antenna relative to a homogenous magnetic field region of the MRI magnet system; and (2) inside the MRI magnet system carrying out the step of: f) performing, following step e), an MRI measurement on the small animal in order to: obtain MRI data of the small animal; and form an MRI image of the small animal from said obtained data.