Interpretation of BOLD MRI signals in rat brain using simultaneously measured near-infrared spectrophotometric information.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the origin of the signal changes in the blood oxygenation level dependent effect (BOLD) and the influence of oxygen metabolism by utilizing near-infrared spectrophotometry (NIRS), which can measure deoxyhemoglobin (deoxyHb) content in blood vessels and redox states of cytochrome oxidase in whole tissue. Simultaneous MRI and NIRS measurements of the rat head were performed by changing oxygen concentrations in the inhalant gas. The signal intensity based on the BOLD effect depended on the influence of both arterial and venous blood deoxygenation in the brain, whose relative contributions differed at various points. In this paper, it is noteworthy that the differential apparent transverse relaxation rate between two conditions in the brain areas was linearly correlated with deoxyHb content determined by NIRS, except in severe hypoxia, and that no reduction of cytochrome oxidase occurred under the same conditions. These results indicate that the influence of hemodynamic changes on the signal intensity of the BOLD effect, and therefore functional MRI, can be elucidated by the NIRS information to determine actual changes of blood deoxygenation and blood volume.