Tim X. Liu1,
Sungho Tak1, Danny J.J. Wang2, Lirong Yan2,
J. Jean Chen1
1Rotman
Research Institute, Baycrest, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; 2Neurology,
University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States
Dual-echo pseudo-continuous ASL (pCASL) was recently introduced for simultaneously measuring dynamic BOLD and CBF, but its potential to reliably measure resting-state BOLD connectivity is still unestablished, due to potential ASL contamination in pCASL-based BOLD, and to its much longer repetition time. Our study shows, for the first time, that pCASL BOLD provides highly comparable connectivity results to conventional BOLD in terms of accuracy and reproducibility, despite its significantly longer repetition time. Using dual-echo pCASL, one can technically acquire the equivalent of 12 minutes of data (6 for BOLD and ASL each) in 8 minutes, allowing >30% cost and time savings.