Man Wang¹, Yuhan Jiang¹, Liangjie Lin², Jiajun Cao¹, and Yanwei Miao^1
1Department of Radiology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China, ²Clinical and Technical Support, Philips Healthcare, Beijing, China

Keywords: Blood vessels, Kidney, Cerebral Blood Flow、 Cognitive Impairment、 Hemodialysis Patients、 3D pCASL、 End-stage renal disease

This work aimed to use 3D pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling (3D pCASL) imaging technology to compare the difference of cerebral blood flow between hemodialysis patients (HDs) and healthy controls (HCs), and to analyze the relationship between cerebral blood flow changes and cognitive impairment. Results showed that decreased cerebral blood flow in the left Fusiform (Fusiform-L) and the left Temporal Inferior of HDs compared with HCs. Mean CBF in Fusiform-L was positively correlated with recognition, and mean CBF in Fusiform-L was negatively correlated with psychomotor speed and visual attention in HDs.

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Keita Fukushima¹, Miho Gomyo², Kazuhiro Tsuchiya^2,3, Shun Saito¹, Tatsuya Yoshioka¹, Takahiro Arai¹, Takayuki Yonaha¹, Ayaka Negishi¹, Kosuke Sakaguchi¹, Yuma Kumagai¹, Makoto Obara⁴, Masatoshi Honda⁴, Takashi Namiki⁴, Yoshiyuki Nishimura⁴, Akihito Nakanishi¹, and Kenichi Yokoyama^2
1Section of Radiology, Kyorin University Hospital, Tokyo, Japan, ²Department of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, Kyorin University, Tokyo, Japan, ³Department of Radiology, JR Tokyo General Hospital, Tokyo, Japan, ⁴Philips Japan, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan

Keywords: Blood vessels, Bone, bone-like imaging

Fast field echo resembling a CT using restricted echo-spacing (FRACTURE), which has been recently developed, has enabled visualization of calcification as well as cortical and spongy bones. However, it cannot be applied to intracranial vessel wall imaging due to insufficient suppression of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) signal and intra-arterial flow artifact. In this study, by performing scans of an original phantom and healthy volunteers, we reveal that the application of multi-chunk and magnetization transfer contrast pulse to FRACTURE can suppress CSF signal and intra-arterial flow artifact and that FRACTURE can be efficiently applied to vessel wall bone-like imaging.

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Xiaojuan Wang¹, Lingling Huang¹, Qi Lin¹, Lian Yu¹, Peng Wu², and Xiance Zhao^2
1Longyan First Hospital Affiliated to Fujian Medical University, Longyan, China, ²Philips Healthcare, Shanghai, China

Keywords: Blood vessels, Brain, non-neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus

DKI and 3D pCASL were employed to investigate whether white/gray matter microstructure and cerebral microcirculation were altered in patients suffering from non-neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). MK, MKT and CBF values were obtained from 25 brain areas, including gray and white matter. We demonstrated decreased MK, MKT, and elevated CBF in some regions in SLE compared to controls. This study suggested that the brain lesions existed in SLE, DKI and pCASL might be useful for depicting SLE brain early damages, and MK seems to be more sensitive and helpful.

Xiuqin Jia¹, Chen Ling², Yingying Li¹, Xuejia Jia¹, Chen Zhang³, Danny JJ Wang⁴, Zihao Zhang⁵, Yun Yuan², and Qi Yang^1
1Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China, ²Peking University First Hospital, Beijing, China, ³MR Scientific Marketing, Siemens Healthineers, Beijing, China, ⁴USC Mark & Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ⁵State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

Keywords: Blood vessels, Brain, CADASIL

The potential neurobiological substrates for sex differences in cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) are largely unexplored. In this study, we explored the sex-specific neuroanatomical mechanisms of CADASIL. Greater grey matter atrophy was found in the frontotemporal cortex in male CADASIL. Working memory was associated with volumes in the bilateral orbitofrontal cortex  and left entorhinal cortex among female CADASIL. The current findings indicate that sex affects the pathogenesis of CADASIL, ranging from differences in neuroanatomy to those in behavioral performance.

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Hannah R Johnson^1,2, Rachael C Stickland², Kristina M Zvolanek^1,2, Yufen Chen³, and Molly G Bright^1,2
1Biomedical Engineering, McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States, Evanston, IL, United States, ²Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States, ³Radiology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States

Keywords: Blood vessels, Velocity & Flow

Interpretation of clinically significant changes in total cerebral blood flow (CBF) can be confounded by normal variability in flow measures. We assessed the effects of resting end-tidal CO₂ (PETCO₂) on inter-session variability in total CBF as measured with phase contrast MRI. Participants were scanned twice, 1-3 weeks apart, with PETCO₂ clamped at resting physiology. Clamping PETCO₂ at participants’ resting respiratory physiology does not notably improve inter-session variability in flow, which was found to be consistent with previously reported values. Furthermore, inter-session changes in resting PETCO₂ did not help to explain noted variability in total CBF.

Jianmin ZHENG¹, Jianxiu Lian², Hong Wang¹, Leilei Li¹, Yingjuan Chang¹, Guorui Hou¹, Gang Lin¹, Yang Li¹, Yang Li¹, and Minwen Zheng^1
1Xijing Hospital, Air Force Medical University, Xi 'an, China, ²Philips Healthcare, Beijing, China, Beijing, China

Keywords: Blood vessels, Blood vessels, black blood, venous sinus thrombosis

Cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) is one of ischemic cerebrovascular diseases with low morbidity and high mortality. Three-dimensional volumetric isotropic turbo spin echo acquisition（3D-VISTA）can be adopted, which has high resolution and most blood signals will be suppressed. In addition, a motion-sensitized and fault-driven equilibrium（MSDE） technology were applied for more thorough blood suppression. 3D-VISTA showed SNR and CNR were significantly higher than when compared with enhanced three-dimensional TFE sequence, which could more accurately identify CVST. 3D-VISTA sequence can be used to improve the recognition rate of craniocerebral veins, which could provide valuable evidence for accurate identification of clinical craniocerebral venous thrombosis.   

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Elles P. Elschot^1,2, Marieke van den Kerkhof^1,2, Merel M. van der Thiel^1,2,3, Robert J. van Oostenbrugge^2,4,5, Abraham A. Kroon^5,6, Walter H. Backes^1,2,5, and Jacobus F. A. Jansen^1,2,7
1Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, Maastricht University Medical Center +, Maastricht, Netherlands, ²School for Mental Health and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands, ³Psychiatry & Neuropsychology, Maastricht University Medical Center +, Maastricht, Netherlands, ⁴Neurology, Maastricht University Medical Center +, Maastricht, Netherlands, ⁵School for Cardiovascular Diseases, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands, ⁶Internal Medicine, Maastricht University Medical Center +, Maastricht, Netherlands, ⁷Electrical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, Netherlands

Keywords: Blood vessels, Hypertension

We studied blood flow pulsatility and perfusion in the cerebral microvasculature to increase the understanding of the pathophysiological processes in hypertension. By exploiting the possibilities of ultra-high-field strength (7T), utilizing phase contrast MRI and spin-echo dynamic susceptibility MRI, we focused specifically on the microvasculature. We found that a higher blood flow pulsatility in the lenticulostriate arteries is correlated with higher cerebral blood flow. Furthermore, hypertension status seems to have an effect on varying pulsatility, which seems to be counteracted by medication usage.

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Xiangchuang Kong¹, Jun Ma², Erin Westerhold¹, Eric H. Middlebrooks¹, Shengzhen Tao¹, Chen Lin¹, and Xiangzhi Zhou^1
1Department of Radiology, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL, United States, ²Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc., Jacksonville, FL, United States

Keywords: Blood vessels, High-Field MRI, PETRA-MRA, 7T

PETRA-MRA is a non-contrast subtraction-based MRA technique for intracranial-vasculature assessment. Compared to TOF, PETRA-MRA is robust to turbulent-flow-related signal voids and metallic-susceptibility artifacts. 7T MRI should further improve the performance of PETRA-MRA due to higher SNR allowing improved spatial-resolution. Here we demonstrate the feasibility and performance of PETRA-MRA at 7T in evaluating intracranial-vasculature. 7T 3D-TOF and PETRA-MRA were performed on volunteers. The blood-to-background contrast ratio for PETRA-MRA was significantly higher than TOF. PETRA-MRA also has better cerebral-artery-visualization with more uniform artery blood signal and comparable sharpness. Overall, PETRA-MRA is a promising technique for evaluating cerebral-arteries at 7T.

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Dapeng Liu^1,2, Dan Zhu^1,2, and Qin Qin^1,2
1Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, United States, ²The Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States

Keywords: Blood vessels, Blood vessels, MR Angiography

Velocity-selective labeling has been utilized in both arterial spin labeling (VSASL) and angiography (VSMRA). This study evaluated the labeling characteristics directly on various cerebral arteries using VSMRA with different VS labeling modules, including double refocused hyperbolic tangent (DRHT), eight-segment B1-insensitive rotation (BIR-8), delay alternating with nutation for tailored excitation (DANTE), Fourier transform based velocity-selective saturation (FT-VSS) and inversion (FT-VSI). Their effects on both the cerebral arterial vasculature and static brain tissue were visualized angiographically and compared quantitatively.  And the implication for VSASL and VSMRA are discussed.

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Henning U. Voss^1,2 and Qolamreza R. Razlighi^2
1Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States, ²Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, United States

Keywords: Blood vessels, Velocity & Flow, Pulsatility, Pulse waves

As we get older, the elasticity of our blood vessels decreases significantly, which can lead to a diminished absorption of blood pressure pulsations, potentially causing damage including hemorrhagic stroke and microbleeds. We studied pulsatility in the circle of Willis, which has been hypothesized to be a pressure absorber, by the method of MRI hypersampling by analytic phase projection (APP). A significant correlation of pulsatility in the circle of Willis with age was found. This finding is interpreted as an ageing-related increase in pulsatile flow relative to the steady flow component of overall cerebral blood flow.

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María Paula Del Popolo^1,2,3, Rodrigo Nahuel Alcalá^1,2,4, Chiara Lombardo^1,4, Ezequiel Petra², Federico Julián González^1,5, Olivier Balédent⁶, Sebastián Moguilner⁷, Roberto Isoardi^1,4,5, Valdir Fialkowski⁸, and Daniel Fino^1,2,5
1Fundación Escuela de Medicina Nuclear, Mendoza, Argentina, ²Fundacion Argentina para el Desarollo en Salud, Mendoza, Argentina, ³Universidad de Mendoza, Mendoza, Argentina, ⁴FCEN, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina, ⁵Instituto Balseiro, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Bariloche, Argentina, ⁶University Hospital Amiens, Amiens, France, ⁷Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States, ⁸Philips, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Keywords: Blood vessels, Velocity & Flow, Neuro

4Dflow has become a widely used sequence for dynamical characterization of the vascular system. This work shows that it is feasible to implement Leapfrog to acquire results that are colse to those obtained with Finite Volume Methods with excelent results in velocity, vortex and energy, but with certain limitations when estimating the WSS. In order to diminish the acquisition time, we will implement a postprocessing tool using only a 2D Phase Contrast acquisition and implement FSI (CFD), this results will be compared with those given by the LF method. 

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Xiaopeng Zong¹, Jordan Jimenez², Tengfei Li², and William Powers^3
1ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, China, ²University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States, ³Duke University, Durham, NC, United States

Keywords: Blood vessels, Aging, small vessel disease

Brain lesions caused by cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) are commonly observed in the elderly.  However, it remains challenging to noninvasively measure the early pathological changes of the underlying vessels. To this end, we evaluated the feasibility of detecting changes in white matter penetrating arterioles (PA) with 7T MRI in patients with diabetes, a known risk factor for SVD, but without severe SVD and in age and gender matched healthy controls (HC). We observed lower flow velocities in PAs in the patients, suggesting that early changes in PA that are discriminative of overt SVD risks can be detected at 7T.      

ZhongPing Chen¹, Dan Tong¹, Yang Sun¹, Shiyu Guo², Yueluan Jiang³, and Zechen Yu^4
1The First Hospital of Jilin University Department of Radiology, Changchun, China, ²The First Hospital of Jilin University Department of Radiology, Chanchun, China, ³MR Scientific Marketing, Siemens Healthineers, Beijing, China, Beijing, China, ⁴Siemens Healthineers Digital Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., Shanghai, China

Keywords: Blood vessels, Vessels

Morphological characteristics of lenticulostriate arteries (LSAs) have important clinical significance.  TOF MRA and intracranial vessel wall imaging (VWI) are powerful noninvasive vascular imaging techniques routinely used in vascular visualization. However, due to the small caliber of LSAs, it is difficult for conventional 3T TOF MRA to achieve the visualization of LSAs. High-resolution magnetic resonance imaging based on compressed sensing (CS) technology is expected to solve this dilemma. DSA is the gold standard for vascular visualization. This study proposes an optimized high-resolution TOF MRA scanning scheme based on CS technology and shows its feasibility in LSA visualization by comparing with DSA.
 

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Lei Zhang¹, Fei Feng², Long Yang¹, Guanxun Cheng², Na Zhang¹, Xin Liu¹, and Hairong Zheng^1
1Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China, ²Department of Radiology, Beijing University Shenzhen Hospital, Shenzhen, China

Keywords: Blood vessels, Blood vessels, ultra-high field, MRA

Small arteries and arterioles, particularly the lenticulostriate arteries (LSAs) and pontine arteries (PAs) are known to be involved in small vessel disease, which contribute to progressive cognitive impairment in elderly persons. In this study, ultra-high field (5T) TOF-MRA was optimized and performed to visualize the LSAs and PAs. Our results show that 0.4mm³ is the optimal resolution for the visualization of LSAs and PAs.

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Harrison T. Levine^1,2, Julien Poublanc², Ece Su Sayin^1,2, James Duffin^1,3, Olivia Sobczyk^2,3, Joseph A Fisher^1,3, and David Mikulis^2
1Department of Physiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, ²Joint Department of Medical Imaging and the Functional Neuroimaging Lab, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada, ³Department of Anaesthesiology and Pain Management, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada

Keywords: Blood vessels, fMRI (task based), Cerebrovascular Reactivity

There is no consensus regarding the differences in Cerebrovascular Reactivity (CVR) magnitude differences between anterior and posterior circulations in healthy individuals. Forty-four healthy individuals underwent BOLD fMRI using a standardized blood vascular stress test achieved with sequential gas delivery. These results showed that cerebrovascular magnitude and speed of response tau) were stronger and faster in the posterior circulation compared to anterior circulation tissues. Therefore, the knowledge that there are significant regional differences in CVR is critical for investigating the regional impact of cerebrovascular pathologies.

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Mengying Li¹, Yuhan Jiang¹, Dandan Zheng², and Yanwei Miao^1
1the First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China, ²Philips Healthcare, Beijing, China

Keywords: Blood vessels, Neuroscience, Psychiatric Disorders

Hemodialysis(HD) can lead to hemodynamic changes and result in the occurrence of cerebral small vascular diseases(CSVD), which can cause changes in the mental state of patients. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of CSVD on the mental state of patients with hemodialysis by simple MRI score. Preliminary results show that HD is more likely to induce more serious CSVD and increase the prevalence of anxiety and depression, especially periventricular white matter hyperintensities (PVWMH) and cerebral microbleeds(CMB), which are closely related to the occurrence of anxiety and depression.

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Jianing Tang^1,2, Helena Chui³, and Lirong Yan^2,3
1Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States, ²Radiology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States, ³Department of Neurology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Keywords: Blood vessels, Brain

Direct characterization of cerebral perforating arteries, such as lenticulostriate arteries (LSAs), can provide valuable insight for understanding the pathology of small vessel diseases. Previous studies have demonstrated the feasibility of 7T PC-MRI for the characterization of LSA pulsatility. However, 7T MRI has not been in widespread use in both clinical and research studies, compared to conventional 3T. The current study aims to study the feasibility of using 3T dual-VENC PC-MRI to characterize LSA pulsatility. Our results show that 3T PC-MRI with dual-VENC offers reliable LSA pulsatility measurements that are comparable to 7T measurements.

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Paulien HM Voorter¹, Maud van Dinther², Gerhard S Drenthen¹, Elles P Elschot¹, Julie Staals², Robert J van Oostenbrugge², Walter H Backes¹, and Jacobus FA Jansen^1
1Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, School for Mental Health and Neuroscience, Maastricht University Medical Center, Maastricht, Netherlands, ²Department of Neurology, CARIM School for Cardiovascular Diseases, Maastricht University Medical Center, Maastricht, Netherlands

Keywords: Blood vessels, Blood vessels, Vessel size imaging

With vessel size imaging, utilizing hybrid spin-echo gradient-echo perfusion scans, we studied microvascular architectural differences in patients with vascular cognitive impairment (VCI). We found lower vessel density and larger vessel radii in white matter hyperintensities compared to normal-appearing white matter. Moreover, we observed lower vessel density and larger vessel radii in deep gray matter of VCI patients compared to controls. Our findings suggest that the smallest capillaries are the first to collapse in VCI pathology and that the microvasculature not only alters in visibly injured tissue but also in regions that are less prone to hypoperfusion (gray matter).

Junxia Niu¹, Yuncai Ran², Yan Zhang², Yanglei Wu³, and Rui Chen^2
1Department of Magnetic Resonance, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China, ²Department of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China, ³Siemens Healthineers Ltd., Beijing, China

Keywords: Stroke, MR Value, Vessels

This study compared the performance of three noninvasive techniques, namely, 3D pointwise encoding time reduction magnetic resonance angiography (PETRA-MRA), 3D time-of-flight (TOF) MRA and computed tomography angiography (CTA) in accurately measuring the degree of stenosis and lesion length in patients with intracranial arterial stenosis using DSA as the reference standard. This study demonstrated that the estimation of intracranial stenosis and lesion length by PETRA-MRA was more accurate and comparable with DSA than TOF-MRA and CTA. Therefore, PETRA-MRA is a promising noninvasive tool for the accurate assessment of ICAS.