Vessel-specific quantification of cerebral venous oxygenation with velocity-encoding preparation and rapid acquisition

• Published in: Magnetic resonance in medicine Vol. 92; no. 2; pp. 782 - 791
• Main Authors: Lin, Zixuan, Jiang, Dengrong, Hong, Yiwen, Zhang, Yi, Hsu, Yi-Cheng, Lu, Hanzhang, Wu, Dan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.08.2024
• Subjects: Adult; Algorithms; Blood vessels; Brain - blood supply; Brain - diagnostic imaging; Cerebral Veins - diagnostic imaging; Cerebrovascular Circulation - physiology; Coding; Coefficient of variation; Female; Humans; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted - methods; Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods; Male; Oxygen - blood; Oxygenation; Phase contrast; Recovery time; Reproducibility; Reproducibility of Results; Veins; Veins & arteries; Velocity; Young Adult; oxygen metabolism; cerebral venous oxygenation; blood T2; velocity encoding; bSSFP
• ISSN: 0740-3194; 1522-2594; 1522-2594
• DOI: 10.1002/mrm.30092

Non-invasive measurement of cerebral venous oxygenation (Y ) is of critical importance in brain diseases. The present work proposed a fast method to quantify regional Y map for both large and small veins. A new sequence was developed, referred to as TRU-VERA (T relaxation under velocity encoding and rapid acquisition, which isolates blood spins from static tissue with velocity-encoding preparation, modulates the T weighting of venous signal with T -preparation and utilizes a bSSFP readout to achieve fast acquisition with high resolution. The sequence was first optimized to achieve best sensitivity for both large and small veins, and then validated with TRUST (T relaxation under spin tagging), TRUPC (T relaxation under phase contrast), and accelerated TRUPC MRI. Regional difference of Y was evaluated, and test-retest reproducibility was examined. Optimal Venc was determined to be 3 cm/s, while recovery time and balanced SSFP flip angle within reasonable range had minimal effect on SNR efficiency. Venous T measured with TRU-VERA was highly correlated with T from TRUST (R  = 0.90), and a conversion equation was established for further calibration to Y . TRU-VERA sequences showed consistent Y estimation with TRUPC (R  = 0.64) and accelerated TRUPC (R  = 0.79). Coefficient of variation was 0.84% for large veins and 2.49% for small veins, suggesting an excellent test-retest reproducibility. The proposed TRU-VERA sequence is a promising method for vessel-specific oxygenation assessment.