Assessment of Regional Rates of Change in CBF in Response to Changes in PaCO2: A Combined ASL & Phase Contrast Study

Noam Alperin¹, Ahmet M. Bagci¹, Jessica Schmidtman¹, Andreas Pomschar², Birgit Ertl-Wagner², Clinton Wright¹

A method for assessment of regional cerebral blood perfusion in response to changes in PaCO2 is presented. The method combines PASL in conjunction with anatomical T1W imaging for assessment of regional CBF values at different states of PaCO2 and phase contrast based measurements of total CBF. Since it is well established that global CBF is linearly related to PaCO2, the phase contrast based tCBF measurements eliminates the need for direct measurements of PaCO2, which are invasive. Preliminary results in healthy subjects demonstrate differences in auto regulation between brain regions supplied by the anterior and posterior circulation.