Abstract #1533

Measuring Absolute Arteriolar Cerebral Blood Volume (CBVa) in Human Brain Gray Matter (GM) Without Contrast Agent

Jun Hua¹, Qin Qin¹, James J. Pekar¹, Peter CM van Zijl¹

¹Dept. of Radiology, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

Vascular-space-occupancy (VASO) MRI can measure relative cerebral blood volume (CBV) without contrast agents using non-selective inversion to null blood signal. When spatially selective inversion is employed to null only blood flowing into a slice, signal can be sensitized to arteriolar CBV (CBVa) if a condition can be achieved for which blood-nulling time and arterial transit time are comparable. We show that absolute CBVa can be determined by performing such a scan with and without blood nulling followed by intensity-normalized subtraction. Measured CBVa in human GM was 0.960.18ml/100ml (n=7), in agreement with literature estimates.