Megan Johnston1, Zhenlin Zheng2, Joseph Maldjian3, Christopher T. Whitlow3, Michael J. Morykwas2, Youngkyoo Jung1, 3
1Biomedical Engineering, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC, United States; 2Plastic Surgery, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC, United States; 3Radiology, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC, United States
Swine brain perfusion is a good model for that of humans due to the similar proportions of gray and white matter. In order to measure swine perfusion, PCASL was implemented using this model. Our investigation identified parameters of the swine PCASL procedure that required optimization, as follows: The arterial blood velocity was measured to optimize tagging efficiency by adjusting acquisition parameters. Multiple post-labeling delays were collected so that the CBF quantification would be less sensitive to varying transit delays across the brain. Model-specific blood T1 and the M0 ratio of blood-to-white matter were measured for the quantification of CBF.