Nyssa Elaine Craig1, Dinesh Selvarajah2,
Esben Thade Petersen3, Xavier Golay4, Solomon Tesfaye5,
Paul Griffiths1, Iain David Wilkinson1
1Academic Unit of Radiology, University
of Sheffield, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, United Kingdom; 2Diabetes
Unit, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, South Yorkshire; 3Center
for Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus University Hospital,
Denmark; 4Centre for Neuroimaging Techniques, University College
London, London, United Kingdom; 5Diabetes Unit, University of
Sheffield, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, United Kingdom
The
sensitivity of the Arterial Spin Labelling technique to detect Cerebral Blood
Flow (CBF) within the white matter of the brain has been under dispute for
some time. The present study poses a
vasodilatory challenge to thirteen normal, healthy control subjects using
Acetazolamide, and uses the QUASAR sequence to assess CBF both pre- and
post-administration. The results show
a high contrast to noise ratio, with a statistically significant increase in
mean white matter perfusion across all subjects, indicating that the effect
can be detected in this tissue type, despite lower absolute flow values than
those detected in grey matter.