Comparison of Arterial Pulsatility of Cerebral Perforating Arteries between Dual-VENC and Single-VENC Phase-Contrast MRI at 7T

Dysfunction of cerebral perforating arteries is a major pathology of small vessel disease. Previous study has demonstrated the pulsatility of cerebral perforating arteries can be measured by 7T high-resolution PC-MRI. In this study, we systematically compared the performance of PC-MRI with single and dual-VENC on pulsatility index (PI) measurements of cerebral perforating arteries. Our results showed that dual-VENC provides more reliable PI measurements than single VENC. PI measurements were insensitive to the temporal resolution of PC-MRI acquisition but showed greater variations with single VENC. The pilot study suggests that PI of cerebral perforating arteries was significantly higher in aged participants.