High Resolution Cerebral Blood Volume Mapping in Humans at 7T with Hyperoxic Contrast

David Thomas Pilkinton¹, Santosh Gaddam¹, Mark A. Elliott¹, Ravinder Reddy¹

It has recently been shown that hyperoxic contrast allows for an accurate measurement of cerebral blood volume using low resolution (4x4x6mm) standard T2*-weighted EPI at 3T. The increase in BOLD contrast at 7T can potentially allow for significantly increased spatial resolution with this technique. However, the standard EPI approach used at 3T is unsuitable for 7T due to shorter venous blood T2* and increased B0 inhomogeneity. We have shown here that these problems can be addressed with steady-state acquisition segmented 3D EPI with partial-Fourier encoding in the phase direction, which produced robust high resolution (1x1x2mm) CBV maps at 7T.