Abstract #2209

The Impact of 3-ply and KN95 Facemasks on Cerebral Blood Flow and Oxygenation

Aisling Fothergill^1,2,3, Christoph Birkl^1,4, Christian Kames^1,2, Alexander Weber¹, and Alexander Rauscher^1,2,5

¹UBC MRI Research Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, ²Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, ³Geoffrey Jefferson Brain Research Centre, Division of Neuroscience and Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom, ⁴Department of Neuroradiology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria, ⁵Department of Pediatrics, Division of Neurology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Synopsis

Given the increased use of facemasks in everyday life, the impacts of these masks on cerebral blood flow (CBF) and oxygenation needs to be investigated. This study used pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling (pCASL) and quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) to determine changes to grey matter CBF and oxygenation respectively. This was done by comparing facemask and no facemask scans for both 3-ply and KN95 masks. The average percent change between the facemask and no facemask oxygenation/susceptibility were insignificant for both mask types, and only the 3-ply facemask showed a statistically significant increase of 5.5% in CBF when wearing the facemask.

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