Blind detection of vascular sources and territories using random vessel encoded arterial spin labeling.
OBJECTIVE
The goal of this work is to use vessel encoded arterial spin labeling (VEASL) methods to detect feeding arteries without prior knowledge of their positions, and map the vascular territory of each.


METHODS
Five healthy subjects were scanned, each with four different tagging planes. The VEASL tagging method was modified to use 60 different pairs of encoding steps with random orientation and spacing. A signal model was developed to calculate the theoretical ASL signal resulting from a vessel in any position in the tagging plane. For each voxel, the location of the feeding vessel was estimated by finding the theoretical signal that correlates most closely with the data.


RESULTS
The main intracranial arteries, including carotid, vertebral, basilar, and cerebral arteries above the Circle of Willis were identified and localized from the ASL data in all subjects. In addition, external carotid branches were detected in all subjects.


CONCLUSIONS
Randomly encoded VEASL provides data that allows for blind detection of source vessels. This method simplifies the VEASL prescription process and allows for efficient detection of atypical or collateral circulation.
Department of Radiology, UCSD Center for Functional MRI, 9500 Gilman Drive, MC 0677, La Jolla, CA 92093-0677, USA. ecwong@ucsd.edu
Eric C
EC
Wong
Jia
J
Guo
D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply*; D002536:Cerebral Arteries / Q000502:physiology*; D002560:Cerebrovascular Circulation / Q000502:physiology; D003097:Collateral Circulation / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D012039:Regional Blood Flow; D013113:Spin Labels; D020521:Stroke / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology
D013113:Spin Labels