• Ying Gao, Candida L Goodnough, Bernadette O Erokwu, George W Farr, Rebecca Darrah, Lan Lu, Katherine M Dell, Xin Yu, and Chris A Flask.
• Department of Radiology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA.
• NMR Biomed. 2014 Aug 1; 27 (8): 996-1004.

AbstractArterial spin labeling (ASL) is a valuable non-contrast perfusion MRI technique with numerous clinical applications. Many previous ASL MRI studies have utilized either echo-planar imaging (EPI) or true fast imaging with steady-state free precession (true FISP) readouts, which are prone to off-resonance artifacts on high-field MRI scanners. We have developed a rapid ASL-FISP MRI acquisition for high-field preclinical MRI scanners providing perfusion-weighted images with little or no artifacts in less than 2 s. In this initial implementation, a flow-sensitive alternating inversion recovery (FAIR) ASL preparation was combined with a rapid, centrically encoded FISP readout. Validation studies on healthy C57/BL6 mice provided consistent estimation of in vivo mouse brain perfusion at 7 and 9.4 T (249 ± 38 and 241 ± 17 mL/min/100 g, respectively). The utility of this method was further demonstrated in the detection of significant perfusion deficits in a C57/BL6 mouse model of ischemic stroke. Reasonable kidney perfusion estimates were also obtained for a healthy C57/BL6 mouse exhibiting differential perfusion in the renal cortex and medulla. Overall, the ASL-FISP technique provides a rapid and quantitative in vivo assessment of tissue perfusion for high-field MRI scanners with minimal image artifacts.Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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