Emerging imaging and analysis methods of the brain’s angioarchitecture
This session highlights state-of-the-art venous, arterial, and microvascular imaging methods, focusing on methodological innovations, validation, and emerging clinical and cognitive applications, while addressing remaining challenges in their integration.
| Session duration: | 90m |
| Intended audience: | Physicists, Biologists, Radiologists |
| Moderators: | Dimo Ivanov, Roy Haast (Confirmed: Ivanov and Haast) |
| First Speaker: | Omer Faruk Gulban (Confirmed: Yes) |
| Second Speaker: | Hendrik Mattern (Confirmed: Yes) |
| Third Speaker: | Khazar Ahmadi (Confirmed: Yes) |
| Fourth Speaker: | Natalia Petridou (Confirmed: Yes) |
Session description
The brain’s angioarchitecture plays a central role in both physiological function and a wide range of neurological disorders. Advances in MRI have enabled increasingly detailed, non-invasive characterization of vascular structures across spatial scales, from large arteries and veins to the microvasculature. These developments are opening new avenues for understanding neurovascular coupling, improving the specificity of functional MRI, and providing biomarkers for clinical applications.
Recent methodological innovations, including high-resolution venous imaging, advanced arterial imaging approaches, and techniques sensitive to cerebral blood volume changes such as VASO, allow more precise investigation of vascular contributions to imaging signals. These techniques not only enhance our ability to map vascular architecture but also improve sensitivity and specificity to neuronal activity and pathology. However, challenges remain in integrating these approaches into robust clinical and cognitive neuroscience workflows.
This session will present state-of-the-art developments in imaging the brain’s angioarchitecture, covering venous and arterial systems as well as microvascular-sensitive functional imaging. The talks will highlight methodological advances, validation strategies, and emerging applications in both clinical and cognitive domains.
The program will be the following:
- Imaging the venous architecture of the human brain (Omer Faruk Gulban)
This talk will introduce advanced MRI methods for visualizing and quantifying the brain’s venous system. Emphasis will be placed on high-resolution gradient-echo weighted imaging techniques and their applications in mapping venous structure, variability, and function. Potential clinical applications and implications for interpreting BOLD fMRI signals will be discussed.
- Arterial imaging and advanced MRI technologies for mapping brain vasculature (Hendrik Mattern)
This presentation will focus on cutting-edge arterial imaging techniques, including time-resolved and high-resolution angiographic approaches. The integration of these methods with advanced MRI technologies will be highlighted, enabling improved characterization of arterial structure and function. Applications in cerebrovascular disease and research contexts will be explored.
- Enhancing fMRI sensitivity to neuronal activity using VASO and capillary blood volume imaging (Khazar Ahmadi)
This talk will present vascular space occupancy (VASO) techniques as a method to improve the specificity of fMRI to neuronal activity by targeting capillary blood volume changes, particularly in the hippocampus. Methodological developments enabling laminar imaging of this challenging region, along with validation studies and applications in cognitive neuroscience will be discussed, focusing on reducing venous contributions associated with traditional BOLD imaging.
- Assessing the influence of the functional vascular organization on BOLD signals (Natalia Petridou)
This talk will discuss factors that affect the spatial spread and temporal dynamics of BOLD responses across cortical depth, with a focus on laminar vascular organization. Contributions to the fMRI signal arising from vascular processes, including macro- and microvascular reactivity, as well as the point-spread function of the BOLD response, will be addressed, together with insights from simulations based on realistic vascular models. The relevance for extracting neurophysiological information and identifying markers of vascular health in neurovascular disease will be addressed.
- Discussion and summary
A moderated discussion will synthesize the presented methods, address current limitations, and explore future directions for integrating vascular imaging approaches into clinical and cognitive research.