Cerebral Blood Volume Mapping of Macro- And Microvasculature in Mouse Brain with 3D Gradient Echo MRI

Valerio Zerbi¹, Diane Jansen¹, Andor Veltien², Amanda Kiliaan¹, Arend Heerschap²

Impaired cerebral macro- and microvascular perfusion play an important role in the development of Alzheimers disease(AD). Here, a post-processing method is evaluated to distinguish and quantify cerebral blood volume(CBV) in macro- and microvasculature with contrast-enhanced MRI in a transgenic mouse model for AD. A comparison between steady-state CBV computations is presented, and histogram analysis is used to separate between vascular compartments. Results showed a decrease in hippocampal microvascular CBV as consequence of aging and genotyping that is not visible without separation of vascular compartments for macro- and microvasculature perfusion.