The acquisition of resting cerebral perfusion measures using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is one of the assessments of cerebrovascular health used to discern how well patients are coping with anatomical changes such as stenosis, and other factors impacting the supply of blood flow to the brain. Perfusion measures may be obtained using several MRI based techniques including arterial spin labeling (ASL) and dynamic contrast enhanced methods that rely on injected contrast agents such as gadolinium. Recently hypoxia-induced changes in deoxyhemoglobin have been used as a non-invasive contrast agent, measuring the resulting changes in blood oxygen dependent (BOLD) signals with MRI. With each approach, the means through which voxel-wise cerebral perfusion information is derived differs, leading to the development a variety of analysis methods in recent studies.

This Research Topic is intended to attract manuscripts that advance the use of resting cerebral perfusion measures in clinical assessments of cerebrovascular health. In pursuit of this aim a better understanding of several aspects are needed.

To address these aspects, we encourage authors to focus on the following:

- methods of measuring cerebral perfusion measures: e. g. MRI sequences, clinical protocols, apparatus,

- the physiology involved in the cerebrovascular control and maintenance of resting blood flow and how this reflects vascular health – for example, how to identify collateral flow pathways,

- how to analyze resting perfusion data in different ways (e. g. hemodynamics, cerebral blood flow, kinetic modelling) to provide more rich information about vascular health in parameters that go beyond simply CBF,

- the use of resting perfusion measures to assess vascular health in various pathologies: e. g. steno occlusive disease, dementia, small vessel disease.

Topic Editor Dr. James Duffin works for and holds equity in Thornhill Medical Inc. (TMI), a for-profit biomedical manufacturing company that was spun off from the University of Toronto Heath Network (UHN). The Other Topic Editor declares no conflict of interest.

Submit your idea

Impact

Frontiers in Physiology

Participating Journals

Impact