CINE Images of a Beating Rodent Cardiac Phantom

Methods A phantom was built consisting of a single walled chamber with similar axial dimensions to a rat left ventricle. The phantom wall is made from polyvinyl alcohol cryogel (PVAC). The phantom is housed in a sealed polypropylene tube in a water bath. An inlet/outlet hose is used to drive expansion of the phantom, a second outlet allows space for this expansion. The phantom is expanded by a gear pump located 1.2m from the magnet bore, driven by a sinusoidal waveform from an arbitrary waveform generator. A triggering pulse was also produced to trigger signal acquisition. The magnitude of the driving waveform was calibrated using ultrasonic M-mode images to give a cross-section ejection fraction of 60%.