Reinvestigation of Perfusion Measurement in Cerebral White Matter Using Pseudocontinuous Arterial Spin Labeling MRI

Wen-Chau Wu¹, ², Shu-Chi Lin², Kuan-Lin Chen²

The feasibility of ASL MRI in cerebral perfusion measurement has been recognized in gray matter, but remains pending in white matter, mainly due to the tissue's low flow rate and long transit time. We tried to optimize the labeling duration (&[tau]) and post-labeling delay (PLD) of pseudocontinuous ASL experimentally and numerically, based on a spatial resolution (1.56x1.56x5 mm³) finer than commonly used (3.4x3.4x5 mm³) to avoid partial volume effect. Results showed that cerebral perfusion can be measured in about 60% of white matter and that the optimal value is 2000 ms for &[tau] and 1500-1800 ms for PLD.