Noninvasive monitoring cerebral blood flow in newborn rats using ultrahigh-frequency ultrafast Doppler

Cerebral blood flow imaging is crucial to understand neonatal neurodevelopment. Previous studies have shown the capability of ultrafast Doppler in monitoring cerebral blood flow in adult rats, but there is currently no evidence to support its noninvasive use for newborn rats. In this study, we first validated the feasibility of ultrafast Doppler for noninvasive monitoring of cerebral blood flow in newborn rats from 1 to 5 postnatal days, indicating it’s a valuable method for studying neonatal brain functional development.