Do the mice have any kind of enrichment activity for them to do while they’re waiting to be imaged? Do they have a wheel to run on, or toys to play with? On the face of it, it might seem like a silly question, but exercise has been shown to improve blood flow in the brain, and having toys to play with, I think has been shown to increase the branching of dendrites, or maybe its the growth of axons. I can’t quite remember at the moment. I can see that that might be one research question. For example, do mice who get several hours of exercise a night, have fewer stalled blood vessels than those who get no exercise?
Also, I guess having some enrichment activities would give the mice some quality of life. It must be kind of boring being a lab mouse, if they don’t have anything to keep them occupied. Although I guess enrichment activities for the mice are not exactly a priority in this particular instance.