Continuous arterial spin labeling of mouse cerebral blood flow using an actively-detuned two-coil system at 9.4T

Among numerous magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques, perfusion MRI provides insight into the passage of blood through the brain's vascular network non-invasively. Studying disease models and transgenic mice would intrinsically help understanding the underlying brain functions, cerebrovascular disease and brain disorders. This study evaluates the feasibility of performing continuous arterial spin labeling (CASL) on all cranial arteries for mapping murine cerebral blood flow at 9.4T. We showed that with an active-detuned two-coil system, a labeling efficiency of 0.82±0.03 was achieved with minimal magnetization transfer residuals in brain. The resulting cerebral blood flow of healthy mouse was 99±26mL/100g/min, in excellent agreement with other techniques. In conclusion, high magnetic fields deliver high sensitivity and allowing not only CASL but also other MR techniques, i.e. ¹H MRS and diffusion MRI etc, in studying murine brains.