Publications Repository - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

Arterial spin labeling (ASL) is a non-invasive MRI technique, allowing quantitative measurement of cerebral perfusion. Incomplete or inaccurate reporting of acquisition parameters complicates quantification, analysis, and sharing of ASL data, particularly for studies across multiple sites, platforms, and ASL methods. Therefore, there is a strong need for standardization of ASL data storage, including acquisition metadata. Recently ASL-BIDS, the BIDS extension for ASL, was developed and released in BIDS 1.5.0. This manuscript provides an overview of the development and design choices of this first ASL-BIDS extension, which is mainly aimed at clinical ASL applications. The structure of the ASL data, focusing on storage order of the ASL time series and implementation of calibration approaches, unit scaling, ASL-related BIDS fields, and storage of the labeling plane information, are discussed. Additionally, an overview of ASL-BIDS compatible conversion and ASL analysis software and ASL example datasets in BIDS format is provided. It is anticipated that large-scale adoption of ASL-BIDS will improve the reproducibility of ASL research.