Arterial Spin Labeled Perfusion MRI in Children with Chronic Kidney Disease

Hua-Shan Liu¹, Abbas Jawad¹, Nina Laney¹, Robert Schultz¹, Christos Davatzikos¹, Divya Moodalbail¹, Susan Furth¹, John A. Detre¹

Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) is associated with systematic changes of physiological factors that can alter cerebral blood flow (CBF) and brain function. In the present study, we demonstrated the feasibility of measuring CBF with arterial spin labeling in pediatric patients with CKD. Our findings indicated that hematocrit is the most significant determinant of CBF changes. A deviation of correlation between age and white matter CBF observed in pediatric CKD patients may reflect developmental changes in regional brain function as compared with control subjects.