Using Brain Imaging to Measure Cerebral Blood Flow in Patients with Cognitive Impairment

A team of researchers at Stanford University, led by Ates Fettahoglu BSc, and Moss Zhao, DPhil, and Greg Zaharchuk, MD, PhD, developed a less invasive means to quantify cerebral blood flow with a hope to promote a reliable method , that  could lead to a better understanding of related diseases.

In a study recently published in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, researchers applied a special type of imaging called eFBB imaging along with MRI scans to determine the optimal time to measure blood flow. They found that using shorter time frames for imaging makes the measurement more focused on blood flow, but it also increases the amount of background noise. After weighing these factors, the investigators found that a 2-minute interval for measurements worked well across different groups of people with varying cognitive abilities. In order to test this method, the investigators compared it with a variety of other whole-brain cerebral blood flow measurements and found they were strongly related, showing that their method was reliable. Furthermore, their method performed equally well across different groups of participants, regardless of their cognitive status.

The investigators have used both PET and MRI scans together to measure blood flow in the brain. Therefore, clinicians will be able to use this as a means to retrieve more detailed information about brain health, especially among pateints who may be susceptible to diseases like Alzheimer’s. In the future, researchers can expand this noninvasive imaging method to study other brain diseases and document even more information about blood flow in the brain that will inform therapy.

Additional Stanford Cardiovascular Institute-affiliated investigators who contributed to this study include Ates Fettahoglu, Mehdi Khalighi, Hillary Vossler, Maria Jovin, Guido Davidson, Michael Zeineh, Fernando Boada, Elizabeth Mormino, Victor W. Henderson, and Michael Moseley.