“…Diagnostic ultrasound imaging techniques are frequently applied to larger animals or human subjects but seldom in the smaller animals, certainly not in those rodent species in which VIDD has been studied. There exist only a limited number of studies using ultrasound for studying the diaphragm in a rodent model (16)(17)(18), which is likely due to the challenges of performing ultrasound on small-scale subjects. Likely triggered by the increasing use in ventilated human subjects, diagnostic ultrasound imaging techniques have been applied in rodents to accurately evaluate in vivo longitudinal assessments of diaphragm mobility in mice (16).…”