Aurelien J Trotier1, Charles R CASTETS1, William LEFRANCOIS1, Emeline J RIBOT1, Eric THIAUDIERE1, Jean-Michel FRANCONI1, and Sylvain MIRAUX1
4D flow MRI on mouse models remains very difficult due to the very small size of vessels and the extremely high cardiac rhythm. To overcome this problem a 3D time-resolved Phase Contrast UTE sequence was combined with an injection of Ultra Small Particles of Iron Oxide to obtain a positive and high signal in blood. The method was exploited to quantify blood flow velocity of the cardiovascular system in mice with a high spatial (200 µm)3 and temporal resolution (16ms). The total acquisition can be reduced to 25min by limiting the number of acquired projections per cine image.