The invention facilitates transport of an immobilized, anesthetized smallanimal across multiple single-modality ormultiple-modality imaging workstations at the same or different physicallocations without loss of subject positional information.The animal holder is compatible with preclinical animal imaging stations suchas micro-CT, micro-MR, micro-PET,micro--SPECT, and FMT. The animal holder is configured to be accommodated by(for example, fit within) individual imaging chambersof such instruments and is fabricated from materials that are compliant withall of the imaging modalities used. In certainembodi-ments, an integrated set of fiducial marker wells accommodates thedispensing of markers that are picked up by several modalitiessimultaneously in multiple planes. The fiducial markers then are aligned instandard image processing or image analysis softwarewith simple image translation and rotation operations, without the need formore advanced scaling, distortion or other operations.The animal holder optionally also includes a system for providing the animalwith inhalation anesthesia, for example, isoflurane,and is designed to fit into identical receptacles inside or outside theimaging workstation(s) that provide heating to minimize orprevent animal hypothermia.
