• Jan-Oliver Neumann, Henrik Giese, Armin M Nagel, Armin Biller, Andreas Unterberg, and Hans-Peter Meinzer.
• Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 400, 69120, Heidelberg, Germany.
• J Neuroimaging. 2016 Sep 1; 26 (5): 519-24.

BackgroundThere is considerable amount of interindividual variability in the size and location of the vascular territories of the major brain arteries. More data are needed to assess the amount of variability and the possible implications for further research and patient care. Arterial spin labeling (ASL) magnetic resonance imaging has been applied in various forms to facilitate noninvasive imaging of cerebrovascular flow territories, but it requires the definition of the flow territory of interest prior to image acquisition.ObjectiveAssessing the vascular territories of the major brain territories by using ultra-high-field time-of-flight (TOF) magnetic resonance angiography.MethodsWe have developed an alternative method to ASL by simulating cerebrovascular dye injections. Following bias field normalization and segmentation of the vessels from 7 Tesla TOF imaging, a virtual model of the arterial vessel tree was generated and a simulation of dye dispersion into the brain tissue was performed.ResultsThe results provided by our method are consistent with the data obtained by autoptic dye injection studies in 23 human beings by van der Zwan in 1993.ConclusionFurther technical improvements in imaging and segmentation techniques will improve the accuracy of the method and will facilitate the delineation of flow territories after image acquisition on even smaller subtrees of the cerebral vasculature.Copyright © 2016 by the American Society of Neuroimaging.

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