Arterial spin labelling perfusion MRI analysis for the Human Connectome Project Lifespan Ageing and Development...

Area of Science:

• Neuroimaging
• Human Lifespan Studies
• Cerebral Blood Flow

Background:

• The Human Connectome Project Lifespan (HCP-LS) investigates human development and aging.
• Arterial spin labeling (ASL) is a crucial neuroimaging technique for measuring cerebral blood flow.
• Existing ASL datasets are limited, particularly for broad age ranges.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish one of the largest high-resolution multiple delay ASL datasets.
• To develop a dedicated processing pipeline (HCP-ASL) for lifespan ASL data.
• To analyze age-related differences in cerebral perfusion and arterial transit time.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a dataset of 3,000 subjects from the HCP-LS, covering ages 5-100+.
• Applied the novel HCP-ASL minimal processing pipeline for pre-processing and perfusion estimation.
• Generated volumetric and surface-based estimates of cerebral perfusion and arterial transit time.

Main Results:

• Identified significant differences in cerebral perfusion between developmental and aging cohorts.
• Observed that cortical perfusion patterns align with cortical areal boundaries, indicating localized regulation.
• Demonstrated differential arterial transit times in cortical core and watershed areas.

Conclusions:

• The HCP-ASL dataset provides a valuable resource for studying human brain hemodynamics across the lifespan.
• Findings suggest differential regulation of cerebral perfusion within specific brain areas.
• Arterial transit time maps offer insights into the interpretation of functional MRI data.