Measuring Longitudinal Changes in Cbf in Post-Stroke Recovery Using Partial Volume Corrected Asl Perfusion Mri

Iris Asllani¹, Sophia Ryan, Eric Zarahn, John W. Krakauer

Stroke leads to a reduction in cerebral blood flow (CBF) in areas remote from the focal infarct, often in another arterial territory. This phenomenon is called diaschisis and is thought to reflect a reduction in neuronal metabolism mediated transynaptically from the infarct region. Our study has two main goals: 1) To characterize diaschisis after subacute strokes using partial volume corrected (PVEc) arterial spin labeling (ASL) MRI. 2)To determine if resolution of diaschisis correlates with recovery from hemiparesis. We present ASL CBF images in stroke patients in the first month and then again at 6 months. The change in CBF is correlated with improvements in motor deficit over the same time period. ASL CBF images from each patient are also compared with age-matched stroke-free controls via a one-to-many statistical analysis.