Journal of neuroimaging : official journal of the American Society of Neuroimaging
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Sophisticated algorithms to infer disease diagnosis, pathology progression and patient outcome are increasingly being developed to analyze brain MRI data. They have been successfully implemented in a variety of diseases and are currently investigated in the field of neuropsychiatric disorders, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We aim to test the ability to predict ASD from subtle morphological changes in structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI). ⋯ Despite the subtle impact of ASD on brain morphology and a limited cohort size, results from sMRI-based classifiers suggest a consistent network of altered brain regions.
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Granulomatous amebic encephalitis (GAE) is a rare and oftentimes fatal disease in immune compromised patients caused by free living amebae Acanthamoeba and Balamuthia. We report a patient in whom GAE secondary to Acanthamoeba was the initial presentation of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome in a 41-year-old male, and discuss the FDG positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging findings that preceded the pathological diagnosis. The PET results provided complementary information when coupled with the MR brain findings. Improved understanding of the clinical and imaging findings of this deadly disease is the best hope for early diagnosis and treatment of this uncommon but deadly disease.
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Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) tractography reconstruction of white matter pathways can help guide brain tumor resection. However, DTI tracts are complex mathematical objects and the validity of tractography-derived information in clinical settings has yet to be fully established. To address this issue, we initiated the DTI Challenge, an international working group of clinicians and scientists whose goal was to provide standardized evaluation of tractography methods for neurosurgery. The purpose of this empirical study was to evaluate different tractography techniques in the first DTI Challenge workshop. ⋯ The DTI Challenge provides a benchmark for the standardized evaluation of tractography methods on neurosurgical data. This study suggests that there are still limitations to the clinical use of tractography for neurosurgical decision making.
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This study assesses whether magnetization transfer (MT) imaging provides additive information to conventional MRI in brain tumors. ⋯ MTR and qMT imaging enables a better differentiation between brain tumors and provides additive information to MRI.