BOLD response of different muscles to ischemic exercise

Abstract

Limited tissue perfusion and ischemia are frequent complications in various disorders. We investigated echo planar imaging (EPI) bold signal during cuff-ischemia (20 min). Five healthy, male volunteers were studied in a Siemens 3T scanner. During the last 110±50s the subjects performed planar flexion which is mainly performed by the gastrocnemius muscle. The reactions of three different muscles, gastrocnemius, soleus and tibialis anterior, were analysed. Soleus muscle had a lower signal during ischemia, gastrocnemius had a longer and flatter response during post-ischemic hyperemia.