Journal of neuroimaging : official journal of the American Society of Neuroimaging
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Fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) imaging at 3 Tesla (T) field strength is the most sensitive modality for detecting white matter lesions in multiple sclerosis. While 7T FLAIR is effective in detecting cortical lesions, it has not been fully optimized for visualization of white matter lesions and thus has not been used for delineating lesions in quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies of the normal appearing white matter in multiple sclerosis. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the sensitivity of 7T magnetization-transfer-weighted (MTw ) images in the detection of white matter lesions compared with 3T-FLAIR. ⋯ Seven-Tesla MTw sequences detected most of the white matter lesions identified by FLAIR at 3T. This suggests that 7T-MTw imaging is a robust alternative for detecting demyelinating lesions in addition to 3T-FLAIR. Future studies need to compare the roles of optimized 7T-FLAIR and of 7T-MTw imaging.
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Recent technical advances in neurosonography continue broadening the diagnostic utility, sensitivity, and specificity of ultrasound for detecting intracranial abnormalities bed side. The clinical and functional applications of neurosonography have significantly expanded since the 1980s when transcranial Doppler sonography first allowed anatomic and hemodynamic delineation of the intracranial vessels through the thin temporal skull. ⋯ It is essential that future neurosonography studies compare these advanced techniques against the current "gold standard" computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging to assure the accuracy of their diagnostic potential. This review will provide a comprehensive update on currently available advanced neurosonography techniques.
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The corpus callosum (CC) has an important role in regulating interhemispheric transfer and is thought to be instrumental in contralateral brain reorganization in patients with brain tumors, as suggested by a previous study reporting callosal differences between language dominance groups through diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) characteristics. The purpose of this study was to explore the structural differences in the CC between high-grade gliomas (HGGs) and metastatic tumors (METs) using the DTI characteristics of fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), and axial diffusivity (AD). ⋯ These results suggest that there is more contralateral brain reorganization in HGG patients than MET patients and that neither the tumor nor callosal volume impact the degree of contralateral brain reorganization.
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Magnetization transfer ratio (MTR), a magnetic resonance imaging technique used to assess tissue integrity, correlates with demyelination and axonal loss in multiple sclerosis (MS) lesions. In acute white matter lesions, short-term MTR changes mainly reflect demyelination and remyelination, in addition to edema and axonal and glial changes. Long-term MTR changes in MS lesions have not been studied extensively. ⋯ These results suggest that long-term changes in MTR in white matter lesions can be used to distinguish lesion subtypes associated with MS disease progression and improve understanding of the temporal evolution of MS pathology.
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Studies in animal models suggest that inflammation is a major contributor to secondary injury after intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Direct, noninvasive monitoring of inflammation in the human brain after ICH will facilitate early-phase development of anti-inflammatory treatments. We sought to investigate the feasibility of multimodality brain imaging in subacute ICH. ⋯ Our study demonstrates for the first time the feasibility of performing complex multimodality brain imaging for noninvasive monitoring of neuroinflammation for this severe stroke subtype.