Semiautomatic cerebrovascular territory mapping based on dynamic ASL MR angiography without vessel‐encoded labeling

Abstract

Characterizing vessel territories can provide crucial information for evaluation of cerebrovascular disorders. In this study, we present a novel postprocessing pipeline for vascular territorial imaging of cerebral arteries based on a noncontrast enhanced time-resolved 4D magnetic resonance angiography (MRA). Methods: Eight healthy participants, 1 Moyamoya patient, and 1 arteriovenous malformations patient were recruited. Territorial segmentation and relative blood flow rate calculations of cerebral arteries including left and right middle cerebral arteries and left and right posterior cerebral arteries were carried out based on the 4D MRAderived arterial arrival time maps of intracranial vessels. Results: Among healthy young subjects, the average relative blood flow rate values corresponding to left and right middle cerebral arteries and left and right posterior cerebral arteries were 35.9 ± 5.9%, 32.9 ± 7.5%, 15.4 ± 3.8%, and 15.9 ± 2.5%, respectively. Excellent agreement was observed between relative blood flow rate values obtained from the proposed 4D MRA-based method and reference 2D phase contrast MRI. Abnormal cerebral circulations were visualized and quantified on both patients using the developed technique. Conclusion: The vascular territorial imaging technique developed in this study allowed for the generation of territorial maps with user-defined level of details within a clinically feasible scan time, and as such may provide useful information to assess cerebral circulation balance in different pathologies.

A Noninvasive Quantification Approach for Monitoring Brain Metabolic Alterations After Surgical Intervention in Ischemic Cerebrovascular Disease

“…The supratentorial cerebral arterial territories are of key clinical importance for evaluation of cerebrovascular diseases and may help in the assessment of actual territorial contribution of individual collateral arteries in ischemic cerebrovascular disease patients [25,4]. We employed this vascular territory to compare the performance of two quantitative methods.…”

“…For clinical interventions of ischemic cerebrovascular disease, the concepts of pathophysiological changes that lead to irreversible tissue damage and of the advances in cerebral compensate based on brain-feeding arteries should play a critical role. Therefore, the quanti cation of pathophysiological changes and regional metabolism is important which may be bene tted to monitor the clinical outcome and recovery effect [2][3][4].…”