Benefits of Interleaved Continuous Labeling and Background Suppression

Weiying Dai¹, Philip M. Robson¹, Ajit Shankaranarayanan², David C. Alsop¹

CContinuous arterial spin labeling (CASL) can produce greater signal and reduced dependence on arterial transit timing than pulsed ASL. These benefits of CASL are reduced, however, when the labeling duration is shortened for compatibility with background suppression. In theory, continuous labeling can be performed interleaved within the background suppression sequence as long as the labeling/control are modulated correctly. Here we compare the performance of interleaved labeling with a more traditional background suppression approach and demonstrate the increased signal achievable with the longer labeling made possible by interleaving with the background suppression.