Mouse Lumbar Spinal Cord Blood Flow Imaging Using Pseudo-Continuous ASL (PCASL) at Very High Field

Guillaume Duhamel¹, Olivier M. Girard¹, Valentin Prevost¹, Patrick J. Cozzone¹, Virginie Callot¹

Spinal cord ASL FAIR-EPI perfusion imaging has shown to provide valuable information relative to tissue alteration and recovery in mouse model of cervical spinal cord injury. Numerous rodent models of SCI are developed at the thoracic or lumbar levels and, although FAIR EPI also appeared to be feasible at these levels, the technique suffered from several drawbacks, including low sensitivity and low robustness to motion. We investigated the feasibility of pseudo-continuous ASL (pCASL) combined with single-shot RARE imaging as an alternative to FAIR-EPI, with the objective of benefiting from higher sensitivity, more flexibility and more robustness to motion.