FAIR-based arterial spin labeling (ASL) MRI is often used to quantify regional blood flow in the brain with exogenous contrast agent. (a) Describe how perfusion sensitivity is achieved in FAIR; (b) At 3.0 T, T1 of arterial blood T1 of 1800 ms. Assuming TR of FAIR pulse sequence is several times (>3) longer than blood T1. During the post-inversion delay time after FAIR preparation, TI (time interval between FAIR inversion pulse and excitation RF for imaging), labeled blood will flood into the imaging areas while undergoing T1 decay. What will be the optimal TI so that perfusion MR signal (∆M, the difference between control/labeling pair) is maximal? (Hints: labeled arterial blood flows continuously into imaging volume during TI period).