Govind Nair1, Xiaoping P. Hu1
1Department of Biomedical Engineering,
Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, United
States
Perfusion
imaging of the cervical cord, while challenging due to anatomical constraints
and pattern of blood flow, may prove to be valuable in diagnosing and
evaluating pathologies like ischemia, tumor and neurodegeneration. In this
study, perfusion imaging of the cervical enlargement was performed on healthy
human subjects using pulsed ASL technique with varying inversion times. We
estimate an arterial transit time of 2s and observed the peak perfusion
signal at 4s from the inversion pulse. The quantitative spinal cord perfusion
rate was determined to be 2611 ml/100g/min, which was lower than those in
the brain.