Thomson, Emma;
(2025)
Quantifying Cerebral Blood Volume and Intravascular Water Residence Time Using Non-Contrast Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Neurodegenerative diseases, such as multiple sclerosis (MS) and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) have been linked to increased permeability of the blood brain barrier (BBB) [1]. This presents a need to image the BBB in vivo and non-invasively to detect and monitor dysfunction. This thesis sought to determine the feasibility of the quantification of blood volume and water exchange across the BBB through the combination of a spoiled gradient echo sequence and the emergent technique of magnetic reso nance fingerprinting. An acquisition protocol was simulated and tested the sensitivity of the measurement, and its accuracy in the presence of variations in blood T1 (T1,b), tissue T1 (T1,t), and B1. It was demon strated that regional simultaneous quantification of vb, τb, T1,b,T1,t, and B + 1 is feasible with an optimised acquisition, and this was demonstrated in vivo. Implementation of denoising techniques to the experimental data provided a subtle benefit in the quantification of water exchange parameters. Furthermore, a preliminary optimisation of a deep neural network-enabled dictionary-free MR fingerprinting implementation was performed to demonstrate its feasibility as an alternative to standard fingerprint matching. Such a technique would result in the acceleration of matching and overall reduction in computational requirements. This thesis demonstrates the feasibility of MRF methods to quantify BBB dysfunction via water exchange measurements for the first time, provid ing a platform for future clinical research that may enable future early diagnostic measurements in neurological disease.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Quantifying Cerebral Blood Volume and Intravascular Water Residence Time Using Non-Contrast Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2025. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Med Phys and Biomedical Eng |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10205044 |
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