Validating faster DENSE measurements of cardiac-induced brain tissue expansion as a potential tool for investigating cerebral microvascular pulsations

Displacement Encoding with Stimulated Echoes (DENSE) has recently shown potential for measuring cardiac-induced cerebral volumetric strain in the human brain. As such, it may provide a powerful tool for investigating the cerebral small vessels. However, further development and validation are necessary. This study aims, first, to validate a retrospectively-gated implementation of the DENSE method for assessing brain tissue pulsations as a physiological marker, and second, to use the acquired measurements to explore intracranial volume dynamics. We acquired repeated measurements of cerebral volumetric strain in 8 healthy subjects, and internally validated these measurements by comparing them to spinal CSF stroke volumes obtained in the same scan session. Peak volumetric strain was found to be highly repeatable between scan sessions. First/second measured peak volumetric strains were: (6.4 ​± ​1.7)x10−4/(6.7 ​± ​1.6)x10−4 for whole brain, (9.5 ​± ​2.5)x10−4/(9.6 ​± ​2.4)x10−4 for grey matter, and (4.4 ​± ​1.7)x10−4/(4.1 ​± ​0.8)x10−4 for white matter. Grey matter showed significantly higher peak strain (p ​