# In vivo insights of small vessel changes with age using USPIO-enhanced MRI

> **NIH NIH R01** · NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE · 2022 · $678,023

## Abstract

Project Summary / Abstract: The microvascular arterial system plays a key role in delivering oxygen and
glucose to fulfill the high metabolic demand of the brain. Recently, microvascular abnormalities have been
increasingly identified as the source or basis of many neurologic disorders including age-related dementia.
Today, the mechanisms of both structural and functional changes due to aging are still largely unclear, and
there is an urgent need for in vivo characterization as to how small vessel ages over the life course in both
male and female adults. Although MRI is able to image the structural aspects of the brain with a resolution of
1mm today, it has not yet been used to study microvascular details in humans in vivo at the in-plane resolution
of 100μm or less. We have developed a means by which to modify the susceptibility of the arteries using an
ultra-small-superparamagnetic-iron-oxide (USPIO) to make it possible to image both small arteries and veins
with susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI) and quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) to see micro vessels
less than 100μm. Our interest in this proposal is to bring together experts in a variety of medical and scientific
areas such as MR physics, image processing and reconstruction to develop a new technique which we refer to
ultra-high resolution USPIO-enhanced MR arteriogram and venogram (USPIO+-MRAV). We will take
advantage of the blooming effect from the USPIO and the shift in susceptibility to create new means to image
both arterioles and venules at the 50μm to 100μm level on both 3T and 7T MRI scanners. We expect to have a
clinically viable method to create a “microvascular print” of the brain's angio-architecture based on 3D vascular
tracking to assess micro-vessel topology and distribution that are not available on conventional imaging. We
will develop quantitative measures of vascular density and capillary density to evaluate age-related changes in
a cohort of healthy volunteers aged from 18 to 85 years. If successful, this innovative technology is expected to
provide fundamental insights on how age-related microvascular alteration is detected and interpreted with in
vivo brain imaging.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10413130
- **Project number:** 5R01NS108491-05
- **Recipient organization:** NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
- **Principal Investigator:** Yulin Ge
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $678,023
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-09-15 → 2025-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10413130

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10413130, In vivo insights of small vessel changes with age using USPIO-enhanced MRI (5R01NS108491-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10413130. Licensed CC0.

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