You are right it does not require contrast. The scan uses a special technique to reduce signal from tissue that isn’t moving so only things that are moving produce high signal and show up “bright.” Since blood is the only thing really moving in the brain - voila!
Neat, I was thinking it was something like motion amplification. I guess the lungs would mess with imaging of the torso, or can you pick the motion frequency to isolate bloodflow but ignore respiration?
The lung motion is be a problem but it is still done in some situations and the radiologist just tries their best with any motion artifacts. Since the blood vessels are so big in the chest it kind of works out, but it turns out better with contrast.
I see. I started reading this article which describes a whole host of different techniques. It really seems to be exploiting the physics of NMR to get this enhancement (or deficit), along with the image processing. It’s really interesting but I’d need a while to get my head around it.
Radiologist here. 👋🏻
You are right it does not require contrast. The scan uses a special technique to reduce signal from tissue that isn’t moving so only things that are moving produce high signal and show up “bright.” Since blood is the only thing really moving in the brain - voila!
Neat, I was thinking it was something like motion amplification. I guess the lungs would mess with imaging of the torso, or can you pick the motion frequency to isolate bloodflow but ignore respiration?
The lung motion is be a problem but it is still done in some situations and the radiologist just tries their best with any motion artifacts. Since the blood vessels are so big in the chest it kind of works out, but it turns out better with contrast.
I see. I started reading this article which describes a whole host of different techniques. It really seems to be exploiting the physics of NMR to get this enhancement (or deficit), along with the image processing. It’s really interesting but I’d need a while to get my head around it.