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Multiple acquisitions with global inversion cycling (MAGIC): a multislice technique for vascular-space-occupancy
Hanzhang Lu1, Peter C M van Zijl, Jeroen Hendrikse
1Department of Radiology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Magnetic Resonance in Medicine
|January 6, 2004
Summary
A new multislice vascular-space-occupancy (VASO) functional MRI technique enables simultaneous blood volume change detection across multiple brain slices. This advancement overcomes previous single-slice limitations, improving functional brain imaging capabilities.
Area of Science:
- Neuroimaging
- Biophysics
- Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
Background:
- Vascular-space-occupancy (VASO) fMRI detects cerebral blood volume (CBV) changes using T1-based blood nulling.
- Current VASO techniques are limited to single-slice studies due to a single zero-crossing on the relaxation curve.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and validate a multislice VASO-fMRI method.
- To overcome the single-slice limitation of existing VASO techniques.
Main Methods:
- A multislice VASO-fMRI approach using a series of nonselective 180-degree pulses to maintain magnetization near zero.
- Acquisition of multiple slices between pulse applications.
- Investigation of magnetization transfer and stimulated echo contamination.
- Development of strategies to mitigate T1-signal decay across slices.
Main Results:
- Phantom data demonstrated strong agreement between experimental results and numerical simulations.
- The multislice VASO-fMRI method achieved effective blood nulling in all tested slices.
- Functional activations were successfully detected in all volunteers during visual stimulation tasks.
Conclusions:
- The presented multislice VASO-fMRI technique effectively detects CBV changes across multiple slices.
- This method expands the applicability of VASO imaging for functional brain studies.
- The technique shows promise for more comprehensive brain activity mapping.