High resolution echocardiography has increasingly become a tool for the rapid assessment of cardiac physiology in small animals (Foster et al 2002;2009). Ultrasound scanning is performed with the animals lightly anaesthetised, hair is removed using a depilatory cream and an acoustic coupling gel is applied to the chest wall of the animals. Cardiac scanning for rat, mice and zebra-fish is performed using probes of 25, 30 and 55 MHz frequency respectively with higher frequencies giving better resolution (better than 100μm) but less depth penetration (limited to 1-2cm). The electrocardiogram (ECG) from rodents are obtained from electrodes on the heated plate on which the ultrasound scanning is undertaken. LV functional analysis can be undertaken enabling measurements of ejection fraction, LV volume, cardiac and stroke volume. Wall dynamics of infarcted and ischemic myocardial regions can be compared to those from normal myocardium. By focusing on one line within the ultrasound image, it is possible to obtain an M-mode trace which enables high temporal resolution measurements for measurement of wall thickening and in the assessment of valvular motion throughout the cardiac cycle. Using the Doppler imaging mode, blood flow patterns across valves and in associated vessels (pulmonary artery and aorta) can be measured indicating potential abnormalities of the valve leaflets and enabling quantification of diastolic and systolic blood flow. The Doppler technique can also be used to study tissue motion – which is of particular value in the assessment of ischemic and infarcted regions. Extending this technique to strain imaging allows segmental and trans-mural wall motion to be evaluated. The techniques described above have also been applied to embryonic mice and rats (E10.5 or later). In such instances, since only the maternal ECG is obtained, assessment of embryonic heart-rate, is obtained from the trans-mitral Doppler or left ventricular M-mode embryonic scans. From such scans, parameters such as myocardial performance index (MPI) can be obtained – a measure of the combined systolic and diastolic haemodynamic function of a heart. MPI can also be assessed in a similar way from embryonic zebra-fish embedded in agar. The administration of ultrasonic contrast agents, via tail-vein injections, enables vascularity within myocardial regions to be assessed. These gas-filled encapsulated microbubbles circulate freely within the blood and enhance the ultrasound signal. By monitoring the rate and magnitude of the increase in the ultrasound signal, within different regions of the myocardium, relative perfusion indices can be obtained. Using tissue-mimicking phantoms developed in-house we have shown that spatial resolution better than 100 μm can be achieved using preclinical ultrasound (Moran et al 2011). Such resolutions, coupled with the high temporal resolution achieved enable preclinical ultrasound imaging to be a real-time, inexpensive, rapid-throughput screening tool for the assessment of cardiac physiology and disease.