Abstract #1551

Alperin N, Lee S

Quantitation of cerebral blood flow (CBF) is potentially important for understanding normal brain function and for characterization of the disease sate in many neurological problems. Xenon enhanced CT, and dynamic contrast enhanced CT and MRI, measure regional CBF normalized for brains weight. Phase contrast MRI techniques measure total CBF (tCBF) and therefore are potentially useful in detecting global changes in the brain such as diffuse head trauma or dementia. However, currently these measurements suffer from large inter-individual variability, which has limited their usefulness. This study aims to determine whether tCBF, normalized for brain volume, has a smaller inter-individual variability and thereby greater sensitivity.