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• Review •
Advances in the application of arterial spin labeling MRI in placental perfusion
MAO Wei  LIAO Zhenhong  SONG Sisi 

Cite this article as MAO W, LIAO Z H, SONG S S. Advances in the application of arterial spin labeling MRI in placental perfusion[J]. Chin J Magn Reson Imaging, 2026, 17(6): 229-234. DOI:10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2026.06.029.


[Abstract] Placental perfusion abnormalities are closely associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes such as preeclampsia, fetal growth restriction, and stillbirth. Early and accurate assessment of placental function is therefore of great significance for maternal and fetal health. At present, clinical evaluation mainly relies on ultrasound to indirectly assess placental blood flow; however, its ability to reflect microcirculatory perfusion and regional hemodynamic changes is limited. Arterial spin labeling (ASL), which uses arterial blood water as an endogenous tracer, requires no exogenous contrast agent and offers the advantages of being noninvasive, repeatable, and capable of quantitatively evaluating tissue perfusion. In recent years, ASL has gradually become an important research tool for placental functional imaging. Early placental perfusion studies mainly employed pulsed arterial spin labeling (PASL), which demonstrated the feasibility of ASL for quantitative placental perfusion assessment. Subsequently, pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling (pCASL), with its higher labeling efficiency and better reproducibility, has become the most widely used and technically mature ASL method, and has been applied to studies of placental blood flow, arterial transit time, and placental insufficiency. More recently, velocity-selective arterial spin labeling (VSASL) has attracted increasing attention because of its lower dependence on arterial transit time and better adaptability to the complex multi-source blood supply of the placenta, showing promising application potential. However, current studies still face several challenges, including the complex maternal–fetal dual-circulation structure, pronounced motion artifacts, low signal-to-noise ratio, and the lack of standardized quantitative models and scanning parameters. This review summarizes the recent progress of ASL in placental perfusion, compares the imaging characteristics, advantages, and limitations of different ASL techniques, and discusses future directions in model development, sequence optimization, multimodal integration, and standardized application, with the aim of providing a reference for placental functional imaging research, preclinical application, and the early identification of adverse pregnancy outcomes.
[Keywords] placental perfusion；arterial spin labeling；magnetic resonance imaging；placental functional imaging；pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling；velocity-selective arterial spin labeling

MAO Wei   LIAO Zhenhong   SONG Sisi*  

Department of Radiology, Deyang People's Hospital, Deyang 618000, China

Corresponding author: SONG S S, E-mail: songsisi0725@126.com

Conflicts of interest   None.

Received  2025-10-25
Accepted  2026-05-11
DOI: 10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2026.06.029
Cite this article as MAO W, LIAO Z H, SONG S S. Advances in the application of arterial spin labeling MRI in placental perfusion[J]. Chin J Magn Reson Imaging, 2026, 17(6): 229-234. DOI:10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2026.06.029.

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