Measuring Brain Oxygenation in Humans using a Quantitative BOLD Approach

Thomas Christen¹, Greg Zaharchuk¹

We have recently developed an MR method to measure the level of blood oxygenation (SO2) in the brain. The technique is based on extraction of the oxygenation information from T2* measurements using a mathematical model and measurements of T2, B0 and the cerebral blood volume (CBV). Although the studies in healthy rat brain have shown good results, the steady state approach used for the determination of CBV is yet only applicable in rodents. The objective of this study was to translate the method for human use. Estimates of MR_SO2 were obtained on healthy volunteers by combining ASL and PWI measurements.