Analysis of Cerebral Hemodynamics in Healthy Adult Rhesus with Dynamic Susceptibility Contrast Perfusion (DSC-MR) Imaging

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate hemodynamic differences in different brain regions of normal macaque brains using dynamic susceptibility contrast (DSC) perfusion magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. Twelve male subjects were selected for DSC perfusion MR imaging (age 4–8 years). The relative cerebral blood volume (rCBV) and relative cerebral blood flow (rCBF) images were obtained by post-processing software. The values of rCBV and rCBF were recorded from the frontal cortex, parietal cortex, occipital cortex, head of caudate nucleus, posterior limb of internal capsule, thalamus, midbrain, pons, cerebellar, semioval area and splenium of the corpus callosum. The figures of rCBV and rCBF can clearly demonstrate the hemodynamic differences in various cerebral parts. It has been noted that rCBV and rCBF values have no significant difference between the right and left hemisphere (P > 0.05). The values of rCBF from cerebral cortex were significantly higher than that of white matter (P < 0.05). The values of rCBF were different (P < 0.05) at frontal cortex, parietal cortex and occipital cortex. However, the highest value has been observed in occipital cortex compared with the others (P < 0.05). We observed higher correlation coefficient between the rCBF and rCBV (r = 0.92, P < 0.05). Results from this study show that the hemodynamic characteristics of healthy adult rhesus are similar to those of normal human studies. Moreover, the blood flow of cortex is found significantly higher than white matter and there was different flow perfusion among different parts, as the occipital cortex showed the highest value and frontal cortex the lowest value.