Abstract
Using Vascular Space Occupancy (VASO) technique to determine the absolute cerebral blood volume (CBV) was already reported. An inversion recovery sequence with inversion time just on the blood nulling point was employed in this technique. After injecting T1 shortening agent Gd-DTPA, the signal difference can be calculated as a relative CBV value. Furthermore, the signal difference in whole-blood pixels can be utilized as a normalizing factor for absolute CBV quantification. In addition to the VASO technique, the most popular method in clinical usage is the dynamic susceptibility contrast MRI (DSC-MRI), which can generate a relative CBV map by successively monitoring the signal time course after injecting Gd-DTPA bolus. For researches on animal model, iron oxide nanoparticles can be used as a blood-pool T2* contrast agent, and relative CBV maps can also be estimated by calculating the T2* decay. In this thesis, we implemented these three methods on a normal rat model and made a comparison. In the future, we expect to develop a hybrid method by combining their advantages, and provide an ideal technique for CBV absolute quantification.