Measurement of regional cerebral blood flow in normal rabbits using echo-planar perfusion-sensitive magnetic resonance imaging

The objective and non-invasive measurement of cerebral blood flow is essent ial for the research of cerebral ischemia. Recently, the magnetic resonance (MR) perfusion weighted imaging(PWI) in association with high magnetic susc eptibility contrast agents has been introduced for the measurement of regio nal cerebral blood flow(rCBF). The authors performed experimental study in order to measure the rCBF of the living rabbit brain with the MR PWI using echo-planar technique. We were able to obtain the typical time-versus-signa l intensity curves in most of the cases. In the comparison of mean rCBV rat io and mean TT in cortex and basal ganglia. there has been no statistically significant difference(P = 0.05). Our results show usefulness of this tech nique in non-invasive measurement of rCBF and thus would he useful in resea rch of the brain ischemia.