A comprehensive framework for the detection of individual brain perfusion abnormalities using arterial spin labeling

Abstract

Arterial Spin Labeling (ASL) enables measuring cerebral blood flow in MRI without injection of a contrast agent. Perfusion measured by ASL carries relevant information for patients suffering from pathologies associated with singular perfusion patterns. However, to date, individual identification of abnormal perfusion patterns in ASL usually relies on visual inspection or manual delineation of regions of interest. In this paper, we introduce a new framework to automatically outline patterns of abnormal perfusion in individual patients by means of an ASL template. We compare two models of normal perfusion and assess the quality of detections comparing an a contrario approach to the Generalized Linear Model (GLM).