Minimizing acquisition time of arterial spin labeling at 3T.

An improved arterial spin labeling (ASL) perfusion technique that combines pseudo-continuous labeling and a T2*-insensitive sequence (GRASE) with background suppression was used to acquire perfusion maps in normal volunteers and stroke patients. It is shown that perfusion measurements obtained in less than 1 min of scan time are reproducible, with a coefficient of variation of 7%. The perfusion maps generated from these data can be used to characterize the stroke lesion.