Estimation of cerebral blood flow (CBF) in functional perfusion imaging could benefit from a method capable of separating effects of arterial arrival time and trailing edge. To accomplish this, the transfer insensitive labeling technique (TILT) was combined with a train of 13 consecutive acquisitions, called TURBO-TILT. Visual activation maps obtained at 13 postlabeling delay times (TI) showed a spatial shift from regions surrounding the arterial vasculature at short TI to brain parenchyma at longer delay times. High baseline CBF and short arrival times were found for the voxels with maximum activation at short TI (<1200 ms), while CBF values (43 ml / 100 g tissue/min) and its increase upon activation (55%) at longer TI were in agreement with literature data on regional cerebral perfusion.
Copyright 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.