FibraVasc: towards ex vivo MRI mapping of cerebral vascular territories, application to the vascularization of deep white matter bundles

The arterial distribution territories of the brain remain poorly characterized and are of major importance for treating ischemic strokes. We propose a new quantitative MRI approach for ex vivo mapping of vascular territories using paramagnetic gelatin injection into cerebral arteries to enhance MRI contrast at the gelatin level. This method was applied on one healthy human brain injected into the middle cerebral artery and accurately quantified the volume fraction of blood using a dedicated protocol and a modeling of the injected tissue signal. We projected the resulting mapping along the deep white matter fiber bundles.