Guang Li1, Bryan De La Garza2,
Eric Raymond Muir, 2,3, Timothy Q. Duong4
1Research Imaging Institute,
Ophthalmology/Radiology, UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, San
Antonio, TX, United States; 2Research Imaging Institute, UT Health
Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, United States; 3Biomedical
Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, United States; 42Research
Imaging Institute, Ophthalmology/Radiology, UT Health Science Center at San
Antonio, San Antonio, TX, United States
Vision
loss due to retinal degeneration is a major problem in ophthalmology. We have
previously reported a thinning of the retina and perturbed BOLD fMRI
responses to physiologic challenges in the retina of an animal model of
progressive retinal degeneration, Royal-College-of-Surgeons (RCS) rats. In
this study, we extend previous findings by developing layer-specific basal
blood flow (BF) MRI to investigate BF changes in RCS rat retinas and
age-matched controls at 43 x 43 x 600 um3 on 11.7T. Quantitative
BF was measured using the continuous arterial-spin-labeling technique. MRI
provides layer-specific quantitative BF data without depth limitation and a
large field-of-view.