The MR Appearance of CSF Pulsations in the Spinal Canal

1 January 1989

book chapter
Published by Springer Nature

Vol. 7 (5) , 57
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-11149-9_36

Abstract

We investigated the MR appearance and incidence of low-signal areas within the CSF of the spinal canal. Nonuniform areas of decreased signal intensity in intracranial CSF have been named the CSF flow-void sign (CFVS) and appear to be due to spin dephasing secondary to pulsatile CSF motion. Similar areas are seen in the spinal canal. The MR scans of 50 randomly selected patients, constituting a total of 63 spinal studies, were reviewed. There were 27 cervical, 16 thoracic, and 20 lumbar spine examinations. All patients were studied using T₂-weighted and T₁-weighted spin-echo pulse sequences. T₂-weighted images were done with sufficiently long TE and TR to cause the CSF to appear hyperintense compared with brain and spinal cord tissue. Two patients with enlarged spinal canals and two patients with syringomyelia were also included to illustrate the appearance of prominent CSF pulsations. Key words MRI Spinal subarachnoid space CSF pulsations CSF flow-void sign

Keywords

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