Volumetric cerebral perfusion imaging in healthy adults: Regional distribution, laterality, and repeatability of pulsed continuous arterial spin labeling (PCASL)

Pfefferbaum, Adolf; Chanraud, Sandra; Pitel, Anne-Lise; Shankaranarayanan, Ajit; Alsop, David C.; Rohlfing, Torsten; Sullivan, Edith V.

doi:10.1016/j.pscychresns.2010.02.010

« Previous Next »Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging
Volume 182, Issue 3 , Pages 266-273, 30 June 2010

Volumetric cerebral perfusion imaging in healthy adults: Regional distribution, laterality, and repeatability of pulsed continuous arterial spin labeling (PCASL)

Adolf Pfefferbaum
- Neuroscience Program, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA, United States
- Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, United States
Sandra Chanraud
- Neuroscience Program, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA, United States
- Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, United States
Anne-Lise Pitel
- Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, United States
Ajit Shankaranarayanan
- MR Applied System Laboratory, GE Healthcare, Menlo Park, CA, United States
David C. Alsop
- Department of Radiology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
Torsten Rohlfing
- Neuroscience Program, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA, United States
Edith V. Sullivan
- Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, United States
- Corresponding author. Stanford University School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, 401 Quarry Road, Stanford, CA 94305-5723, United States. Tel.: +1 650 498 7328; fax: +1 650 859 2743.

Received 26 January 2010; received in revised form 23 February 2010; accepted 23 February 2010.

Abstract

The regional distribution, laterality, and reliability of volumetric pulsed continuous arterial spin labeling (PCASL) measurements of cerebral blood flow (CBF) in cortical, subcortical, and cerebellar regions were determined in 10 normal volunteers studied on two occasions separated by 3 to 7days. Regional CBF, normalized for global perfusion, was highly reliable when measured on separate days. Several regions showed significant lateral asymmetry; notably, in frontal regions CBF was greater in the right than left hemisphere, whereas left was greater than right in posterior regions. There was considerable regional variability across the brain, whereby the posterior cingulate and central and posterior precuneus cortices had the highest perfusion and the globus pallidus the lowest gray matter perfusion. The latter may be due to iron-induced T1 shortening affecting labeled spins and computed CBF signal. High CBF in the posterior cingulate and posterior and central precuneus cortices in this task-free acquisition suggests high activity in these principal nodes of the “default mode network.”