Comparison between pulsed and pseudo-continuos arterial spin labeling with single-shot 3D GRASE readout for fMRI at 3T

摘要

Introduction: Arterial spin labeling (ASL)1 can offer superior spatial specificity2 than BOLD fMRI. However, ASL suffers from low signal- to-noise ratio (SNR), limiting the achievable spatial resolution or demanding long scanning durations. The longer labeling duration of pseudo-continuos ASL (PCASL) offers higher SNR perfusion maps at the cost of decreased temporal resolution. In contrast, pulsed ASL (PASL) allows shorter post-labeling delays (PLD) and TRs, but has a limited bolus length and therefore SNR. Since both the temporal SNR (tSNR) and number of TRs in a run influence the fMRI statistics, we compared an optimized short-TR single-shot PASL approach to its PCASL counterpart.