Digital MR brain phantom with vascular territory information: Application to MR imaging simulation for cerebrovascular dependent contrast

Motivation: Pathological changes caused by blood flow is important area to learn MRI basics, however, there are no synthetic MR image generation method for blood flow change. Goal(s): We created a brain MRI digital phantom that considers cerebral vascular territory information to generate synthetic MRI contrast changes that include blood flow pathological changes. Approach: Segmented brain region in MNI152 were divided into vascular territories based on the atlas published in the literature. Different MR and vascular parameters were assigned to each of these regions, then synthetic images were generated. Results: The proposed method could generate blood flow depended MR contrast as synthetic images. Impact: This study demonstrated the proposed method could generate blood flow depended MR contrast as synthetic images. The proposed system can be used to predict MR contrast change associated with vascular territories. It is useful for teaching advanced MR imaging methods.