Bram F. Coolen1, Rik PM Moonen1,
Leonie EM Paulis1, Tessa Geelen1, Larry de Graaf1,
Klaas Nicolay1, Gustav J. Strijkers1
1Biomedical NMR, Department of
Biomedical Engineering,
A
method that allows myocardial first-pass perfusion measurements in mice is
presented. Using a combination of segmented saturation-prepared FISP
acquisition and GRAPPA parallel imaging allows a temporal resolution of one
image every three heart beats with an acquisition time of less than 16 ms.
First-pass perfusion images showed the influx of contrast agent into the
myocardium with sufficient temporal resolution to derive semi-quantitative
perfusion values. These were found significantly lower in a mouse with
myocardial infarction compared to healthy control mice.