Thomas Troalen1,
Thibaut Capron1, Monique Bernard2, Patrick J. Cozzone2,
Frank Kober1
1Centre
de Rsonance Magntique Biologique et Mdicale (CRMBM), UMR CNRS N7339,
Facult de Mdecine, Aix-Marseille Universit, Marseille, France; 2Centre
de Rsonance Magntique Biologique et Mdicale (CRMBM), Aix-Marseille
Universit, Marseille, France
This study presents the use of a recently proposed arterial spin labeling method for assessing cyclic variations of myocardial blood flow (MBF) in small rodents. An ECG-gated steady-pulsed labeling approach was combined with simultaneous readout over the cardiac cycle using cine-FLASH to obtain cyclic temporally resolved MBF maps across the cardiac cycle with 6 ms resolution. The new protocol was carried out on one Wistar rat at rest and during intravenous adenosine-induced stress. Perfusion was found higher during stress, but the relative variation was slightly lower compared to rest.