Open AccessAssessment of single-vessel cerebral blood velocity by phase contrast fMRI
Author(s) -
Xuming Chen,
Yuanyuan Jiang,
Sangcheon Choi,
R Pohmann,
Klaus Scheffler,
David Kleinfeld,
Xin Yu
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
plos biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.127
H-Index - 271
eISSN - 1545-7885
pISSN - 1544-9173
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000923
Subject(s) - arteriole , hemodynamics , venule , neuroscience , cerebral blood flow , blood flow , functional magnetic resonance imaging , blood oxygenation , brain mapping , contrast (vision) , blood oxygen level dependent , blood volume , medicine , psychology , cardiology , microcirculation , artificial intelligence , circulatory system , computer science
Current approaches to high-field functional MRI (fMRI) provide 2 means to map hemodynamics at the level of single vessels in the brain. One is through changes in deoxyhemoglobin in venules, i.e., blood oxygenation level–dependent (BOLD) fMRI, while the second is through changes in arteriole diameter, i.e., cerebral blood volume (CBV) fMRI. Here, we introduce cerebral blood flow–related velocity-based fMRI, denoted CBFv-fMRI, which uses high-resolution phase contrast (PC) MRI to form velocity measurements of flow. We use CBFv-fMRI in measure changes in blood velocity in single penetrating microvessels across rat parietal cortex. In contrast to the venule-dominated BOLD and arteriole-dominated CBV fMRI signals, CBFv-fMRI is comparable from both arterioles and venules. A single fMRI platform is used to map changes in blood pO 2 (BOLD), volume (CBV), and velocity (CBFv). This combined high-resolution single-vessel fMRI mapping scheme enables vessel-specific hemodynamic mapping in animal models of normal and diseased states and further has translational potential to map vascular dementia in diseased or injured human brains with ultra–high-field fMRI.