The aim of this study was to establish a feasible and robust magnetic resonance imaging protocol for the quantitative assessment of cardiac function in marmosets and to present normal values of cardiac function across different ages from young adult, middle-aged, to very old clinically healthy animals. Cardiac MRI of 33 anesthetized marmosets at the age of 2-15 years was performed at 9.4 T using IntraGate-FLASH that operates without any ECG-triggering and breath holding. Normalized to post-mortem heart weight, the left ventricular end-diastolic volume (LV-EDV) was significantly reduced in older marmosets. The LV end-systolic volume (LV-ESV) and the LV stroke volume (LV-SV) showed a similar trend while the LV ejection fraction (LV-EF) and wall thickening remained unchanged. Similar observations were made for the right ventricle. Moreover, the total ventricular myocardial volume was lower in older monkeys while no significant difference in heart weight was found. In conclusion, IntraGate-FLASH allowed for quantification of left ventricular cardiac function but seems to underestimate the volumes of the right ventricle. Although less strong and without significant sex differences, the observed age related changes were similar to previously reported findings in humans supporting marmosets as a model system for age related cardiovascular human diseases.

中文翻译：

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普通mar猴的心脏MRI显示心脏功能的年龄依赖性

这项研究的目的是建立一种可行且强大的磁共振成像协议，以定量评估mar猴的心脏功能，并提供从成年，中年到非常老的临床健康动物不同年龄的心脏功能正常值。使用IntraGate-FLASH在9.4 T时对33例2-15岁麻醉的mos猴进行了心脏MRI检查，该方法无需任何ECG触发和屏气操作。标准化至验尸后的心脏重量，老年mar猴的左心室舒张末期容积（LV-EDV）显着降低。左室收缩末期容积（LV-ESV）和左室卒中容积（LV-SV）表现出相似的趋势，而左室射血分数（LV-EF）和壁增厚保持不变。对右心室进行了类似的观察。此外，年龄较大的猴子的总心室心肌体积较低，而心脏重量没有发现显着差异。总之，IntraGate-FLASH可以量化左心室功能，但似乎低估了右心室的容积。尽管强度较弱且没有明显的性别差异，但观察到的年龄相关变化与先前报道的支持mar猴作为年龄相关的心血管人类疾病的模型系统的人类发现相似。