As Gadolinium passes through the tissues, it induces a reduction of T2* in the nearby water protons; the corresponding decrease in signal intensity observed depends on the local Gd concentration, which may be considered a proxy for perfusion.

Slower time resolution allows more detailed images, but may limit interpretation to only looking at signal intensity curve shape.

[7] DCE-MRI can also provide model-independent parameters, such as T1 (which is not technically part of the contrast scan and can be acquired independently) and (initial) area under the gadolinium curve (IAUGC, often given with number of seconds from injection - i.e., IAUGC60), which may be more reproducible.

[8] Accurate measurement of T1 is required for some pharmacokinetic models, which can be estimated from 2 pre-gadolinium images of varying excitation pulse flip angle,[9] though this method is not intrinsically quantitative.

[11] Arterial spin labelling (ASL) has the advantage of not relying on an injected contrast agent, instead inferring perfusion from a drop in signal observed in the imaging slice arising from inflowing spins (outside the imaging slice) having been selectively inverted or saturated.