ABSTRACT
Objective To obtain imaging information of the cervical arteries and vertebral structure of rhesus ma -caques and provide useful reference data for medical research works using macaques as animal models .Methods Six a-dult macaques (3 males and 3 females) in age of 3-5 years, body weight from 3.5 to 5 kg, were used to examine the neck by 320 row spiral CT imaging under general anesthesia , and three-dimensional reconstruction was performed to observe the vertebral artery morphology , and to measure the diameter of vertebral artery and the size of transverse foramen of the ma -caques .Color Doppler ultrasound was combined with 320-CT imaging to assess the blood flow velocity in carotid arteries . After CT scan to make sure that the vertebral artery and cervical vertebra of macaques had no deformity , the size of trans-verse foramen and diameter of vertebral artery were measured in the cross-sectional images .Color Doppler ultrasound was used to analyze the peak systolic velocity ( PSV) , diastolic peak flow velocity ( EDV) and the diameter ( D) of common ca-rotid artery (CCA), internal carotid artery (ICA), external carotid artery (ECA), and vertebral artery (VA) of the ma-caques .Results The 320-CT scan showed that in the monkeys , the vertebral artery enters the cervical spine through the intervertebral foramina at C6, and leaves the cervical spine at C 2 level, and the cervical spine has Luschka joint , which is similar to the anatomic structure in humans .The diameter of left and right vertebral arteries was 1.89 ±0.44 mm and 1.72 ±0.39 mm, respectively , with no significant difference between them in the same segment ( P>0.05 ) , and the size of transverse foramen also had no significant difference in the same segment ( P>0.05 ) .Color Doppler ultrasound showed that the left and right side systolic peak velocity (PSV) and diastolic peak velocity (EDV) of CCA and ICA, the left and right side systolic peak velocity (PSV) of ECA and VA had statistically significant difference (P<0.05), and the left ar-teries were predominant in the macaques .Conclusions In this study we obtained some imaging information of vertebral artery morphology and artery blood flow of macaques and these information may provide some useful basic data for further studies using rhesus macaques as animal models .