First results on kinetic modelling and parametric imaging of dynamic 18F-FDG datasets from a long axial FOV PET scanner in oncological patients

FSL (the FMRIB Software Library) is a comprehensive library of analysis tools for functional, structural and diffusion MRI brain imaging data, written mainly by members of the Analysis Group, FMRIB, Oxford. For this NeuroImage special issue on "20 years of fMRI" we have been asked to write about the history, developments and current status of FSL. We also include some descriptions of parts of FSL that are not well covered in the existing literature. We hope that some of this content might be of interest to users of FSL, and also maybe to new research groups considering creating, releasing and supporting new software packages for brain image analysis. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A theoretical model of blood-brain exchange is developed and a procedure is derived that can be used for graphing multiple-time tissue uptake data and determining whether a unidirectional transfer process was dominant during part or all of the experimental period. If the graph indicates unidirectionality of uptake, then an influx constant (Ki) can be calculated. The model is general, assumes linear transfer kinetics, and consists of a blood-plasma compartment, a reversible tissue region with an arbitrary number of compartments, and one or more irreversible tissue regions. The solution of the equations for this model shows that a graph of the ratio of the total tissue solute concentration at the times of sampling to the plasma concentration at the respective times (Cp) versus the ratio of the arterial plasma concentration-time integral to Cp should be drawn. If the data are consistent with this model, then this graph will yield a curve that eventually becomes linear, with a slope of Ki and an ordinate intercept less than or equal to the vascular plus steady-state space of the reversible tissue region.

The method of graphical analysis for the evaluation of sequential data (e.g., tissue and blood concentrations over time) in which the test substance is irreversibly trapped in the system has been expanded. A simpler derivation of the original analysis is presented. General equations are derived that can be used to analyze tissue uptake data when the blood-plasma concentration of the test substance cannot be easily measured. In addition, general equations are derived for situations when trapping of the test substance is incomplete and for a combination of these two conditions. These derivations are independent of the actual configuration of the compartmental system being analyzed and show what information can be obtained for the period when the reversible compartments are in effective steady state with the blood. This approach is also shown to result in equations with at least one less nonlinear term than those derived from direct compartmental analysis. Specific applications of these equations are illustrated for a compartmental system with one reversible region (with or without reversible binding) and one irreversible region.