Eric Raymond Muir1,2, Qiang Shen2,
Timothy Q. Duong2
1Biomedical Engineering, Georgia
Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, United States; 2Research
Imaging Institute, Ophthalmology/Radiology, UT Health Science Center San
Antonio, San Antonio, TX, United States
The
retina has two separate blood supplies, the retinal and choroidal vessels,
located on either side of the retina. We recently showed that MRI at 42x42 m
can resolve layer-specific blood flow (BF) in both vascular layers, and the
avascular layer in between in mice. In this study, we further developed this
BF MRI technique to include inversion-recovery suppression of the vitreous
and applied it to image layer-specific BF and BOLD changes during hypoxic
challenge in mouse retinas. Basal BF and BF and BOLD responses to mild
hypoxic challenge were markedly different between the retinal and choroidal
vasculatures.