Measurement of Multi-Slice Cerebral Blood Flow with T1-Normalized Arterial Spin Labeling MRI Using a Volume RF Labeling Coil

Phillip Zhe Sun¹, Enfeng Wang¹, Xiaoan Zhang², Jerry S. Cheung¹

Arterial spin labeling (ASL) MRI has been increasingly used for examining acute stroke as a research tool. However, CBF calculation requires acquisition of T1app map, which is significantly shorter than the intrinsic T1 map due to concomitant RF irradiation effects. As such, the conventional approach of normalizing with a single T1app value may not be sufficient to characterize regional CBF. We showed that parametric T1app /T1 map remained reasonably homogeneous so that T1app map can be estimated from T1 map, permitting quantitative CBF mapping. The proposed approach has been extended for multi-slice CBF measurement in vivo.