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Abstract

Quantification of perfusion in white matter is still difficult due to its low level, causing an often insufficiently low signal-to-noise ratio, and its long and inhomogeneous transit delays. Here, a technique is presented that accurately measures white matter perfusion by combining a spectroscopic single-voxel localization technique (PRESS) with a pulsed arterial spin labeling encoding scheme (FAIR) to specifically address the properties of white matter. The transit delay was measured by shifting the position of a slice-selective saturation pulse between inversion and acquisition. Perfusion measurements resulted in values of 15.6 ± 3.2 ml/100g/min in the left and 15.2 ± 4.8 ml/100g/min in the right hemispheric white matter and 83.2 ± 15.2 ml/100g/min in cortical gray matter. Taking dispersion of the transit times into account does not cause a significant change in the measured values.