A mathematical model and image analysis technique for calculating regional cerebral blood flow

This paper discusses the theory and implementation of a modular data analysis system for the calculation and imaging of regional cerebral blood flow. The program may be generalized to any system requiring instantaneous and controllable visual data display, and we have set it up for compartmental analysis as described by the Fick equation with certain correction factors. We have included flow charts of the program source code and data paths for the various modules. We also describe the functional hardware components necessary for the execution of these algorithms. Finally, analyzed data are represented from a set of experiments employing differential visual stimulation. The results obtained using our methods are comparable to those in the existing literature; they are more accurately and easily obtained, and have the added power of manipulable digitization of the original image without loss of data.