Capillary-weighted velocity-selective ASL for subsecond fast fMRI

This work evaluates capillary-weighted VS-ASL for subsecond functional cerebral blood flow (CBF) mapping with high microvascular specificity. Three experiments were conducted: one to demonstrate that capillary-weighted VS-ASL is mostly free from macrovascular contamination when compared to arterial-weighted VS-ASL, one to demonstrate that functional MRI is feasible with capillary-weighted VS-ASL at moderate repetition times, and one to show that, despite lower sensitivity, capillary-weighted functional MRI can be performed at subsecond temporal resolution. Our findings suggest that capillary-weighted VS-ASL may enable the study of fast functional CBF responses with high neuronal specificity.