Cerebrovascular Compliance Quantification with Non-Gated, Velocity Encoded Projections

Zachary Rodgers¹, Michael C. Langham¹, Jeremy F. Magland¹, John A. Detre², Felix W. Wehrli¹

A non-gated method for quantification of cerebrovascular compliance (CVC) the change in volume (ΔV) divided by change in pressure (ΔP) of brain microvasculature over the cardiac cycle is presented. Dual-slice interleaved velocity encoded projections provide simultaneous measurement of cerebral inflow and outflow waveforms continuously at 30 ms resolution for quantification of ΔV. Projection-based CVC produced similar waveform shapes and ΔV values compared to retrospectively gated PC-MRI in about 1/10th the scan time and without gating, greatly reducing potential errors due to temporal averaging. The method could be applied to better understand the vascular contribution to diseases such as Alzheimers.