TEMPORAL ALIGNMENT OF TISSUE AND ARTERIAL DATA AND SELECTION OF INTEGRATION START TIMES FOR THE (H2O)-O-15 AUTORADIOGRAPHIC CBF MODEL IN PET

A technique has been developed and tested that provides an automated m ethod of temporally aligning the PET tissue activity curve with the ar terial activity curve for quantification of cerebral blood flow using the H-2 O-15 autoradiographic model. This technique not only determine s the relative time delay between the two curves, but also provides th e start time of integration. Variability in computing global cerebral blood flow using this technique is shown to be less than that obtained by trained observers manually selecting parameters and at least as go od as that obtained by using another automated alignment technique.