Patent Document ID: 9291692
Application ID: 14279046
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of assessing the blood-brain barrier recovery curve, comprising: providing an ultrasound contrast agent to a subject; applying an ultrasound to a brain target area of the subject to open the blood-brain barrier; applying the ultrasound to the brain target area of the subject at different time points with a dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI); using DCE-MRI for the whole brain imaging to obtain DCE-MRI image signals of brain permeability on the target and non-target area at different time points; analyzing the obtained DCE-MRI image signals and using general kinetic model (GKM) to calculate the permeability constant K trans at different time points; and calculating the permeability constant K trans decay rate by using a permeability constant K trans equation (III): 
 K trans ( t )= K trans sonication ×exp(− a×t )+ K trans non-sonication ×exp(− b×t )  (III) and to obtain a blood-brain barrier recovery curve; wherein, the K trans (t) is the permeability constant of the drug in the target area at time of t; K trans sonication is the permeability constant of drug in the target area at t=0 after ultrasonic irradiation; K trans non-sonication is the permeability constant of drug in the non-target area at t=0 without ultrasonic irradiation; and the values a and b are estimated parameters derived from the recovery curve.