Flow-Weighted Arterial Transit Time Mapping of the Human Brain

Toralf Mildner¹, Stefan Hetzer¹, Wolfgang Driesel¹, Karsten Mller¹, Harald E. Mller¹

Mapping of Arterial Transit times by Intravascular Signal SElection (MATISSE) was performed with and without a mild flow-weighting (FW). The arterial transit times, _δa, of the flow-weighted data were increased on average by about 700 ms and the signal amplitudes roughly were halved. Flow-through signals, i. e. signals of arterial vessels permeating the voxel, are removed almost completely, although the MATISSE signal still is expected to be of vascular origin. The fact that _δa with mild FW was found to be easily larger than 2 s might be important for the quantification of CBF in standard dual-coil CASL experiments.