QUANTITATION OF REGIONAL CEREBRAL BLOOD-FLOW INCREASES DURING MOTOR ACTIVATION - A STEADY-STATE ARTERIAL SPIN TAGGING STUDY

Steady-state arterial. spin tagging MRI approaches were used to quanti tate regional cerebral blood flow increases during finger tapping task s in seven normal subjects. Statistically significant increases in cer ebral blood flow were observed ill the contralateral primary sensorimo tor cortex in all seven subjects and in the supplementary motor area i n five subjects. The intrinsic spatial resolution of the cerebral bloo d flow images was similar to 4 mna. If no spatial filtering was applie d, the average increase in cerebral blood flow in the activated primar y sensorimotor cortex was 60 +/- 10 cc/100 g/min (91 +/- 32%). If the images were filtered to a spatial resolution of 15 mm, the average inc rease in cerebral blood flow in the activated primary sensorimotor cor tex was 23 +/- 7 cc/100 g/min (42 +/- 15%), in agreement with previous ly reported Xe-133 slid PET results. (C) 1997 Academic Press.