title: Measurement of pulsatile flow using MRI and a Bayesian technique of probability analysis.
abstract: This work shows that complete spatial information of periodic pulsatile fluid flows can be rapidly obtained by Bayesian probability analysis of flow encoded magnetic resonance imaging data. These data were acquired as a set of two-dimensional images (complete two-dimensional sampling of k-space or reciprocal position space) but with a sparse (six point) and nonuniform sampling of q-space or reciprocal displacement space. This approach enables more precise calculation of fluid velocity to be achieved than by conventional two q-sample phase encoding of velocities, without the significant time disadvantage associated with the complete flow measurement required for Fourier velocity imaging. For experimental comparison with the Bayesian analysis applied to nonuniformly sampled q-space data, a Fourier velocity imaging technique was used with one-dimensional spatial encoding within a selected slice and a uniform sampling of q-space using 64 values of the pulsed gradients to encode fluid flow. Because the pulsatile flows were axially symmetric within the resolution of the experiment, the radial variation of fluid velocity, in the direction of the pulsed gradients, was reconstructed from one-dimensional spatial projections of the velocity by exploiting the central slice theorem. Data were analysed for internal consistency using linearised flow theories. The results show that nonuniform q-space sampling followed by Bayesian probability analysis is at least as accurate as the combined uniform q-space sampling with Fourier velocity imaging and projection reconstruction method. Both techniques give smaller errors than a two-point sampling of q-space (the conventional flow encoding experiment).
authors.affiliation: Herchel Smith Laboratory for Medicinal Chemistry, University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine, UK.
authors.forename: R G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Wise
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Newling
authors.forename: A R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Gates
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Xing
authors.forename: T A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Carpenter
authors.forename: L D
authors.initials: LD
authors.lastname: Hall
mesh_terms: D001499:Bayes Theorem; D001783:Blood Flow Velocity; D005583:Fourier Analysis; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D011673:Pulsatile Flow; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted