Non-Invasive Quantification of Absolute Cerebral Blood Volume Applicable to the Whole Human Brain

Pelin Aksit Ciris¹, Maolin Qiu¹, Robert Todd Constable¹

CBV changes occur across diverse pathologies and during functional challenges, however, measurements have been invasive and difficult especially in humans. In this study, whole brain absolute CBV (mL blood/100mL parenchyma) was measured non-invasively in 13 human volunteers during visual stimulation; by further developing a method based on a biophysical model with rotating multi-slice acquisitions maintaining steady state. Such non-invasive quantification could foster improved understanding of the relationship between neuronal activity, hemodynamic changes and metabolism underlying fMRI signal, provide a reference for calibrated fMRI, and potentially find clinical utility in evaluating vascular state, vascular damage, and/or monitoring treatments.