Journal of neuroimaging : official journal of the American Society of Neuroimaging
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The molecular groups WNT activated (WNT), Sonic hedgehog activated (SHH), group 3, and group 4 are biologically and clinically distinct forms of medulloblastoma. We evaluated apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values' utility in differentiating/predicting medulloblastoma groups at the initial diagnostic imaging evaluation and prior to surgery. ⋯ ADC analysis of a tumor's contrast-enhancing solid portion may aid preoperative molecular classification/prediction of pediatric medulloblastomas and may facilitate optimal surgical treatment planning, reducing surgery-induced morbidity.
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Neurosurgical resection is one of the few opportunities researchers have to image the human brain pre- and postfocal damage. A major challenge associated with brains undergoing surgical resection is that they often do not fit brain templates most image-processing methodologies are based on. Manual intervention is required to reconcile the pathology, requiring time investment and introducing reproducibility concerns, and extreme cases must be excluded. ⋯ Mapping a system as variable and complex as the human brain requires sample sizes much larger than the current technology can support. This pipeline can be used to execute large-scale, sufficiently powered analyses by meeting the need for an automatic approach to objectively quantify white matter disconnection.
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In patients with symptomatic vertebrobasilar intracranial atherosclerotic disease (ICAD), impaired distal flow predicts recurrent stroke, but limited data exist on the association between perfusion status and recurrent stroke in anterior circulation ICAD. ⋯ Distal hypoperfusion in acutely symptomatic ICAD with 50-99% stenosis is associated with stroke recurrence. Distal hypoperfusion could be used to enrich future trials of secondary stroke prevention in ICAD patients.
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To examine the impact of lesion location on longitudinal myelin water fraction (MWF) changes in chronic multiple sclerosis (MS) lesions. Relative hypoxia, due to vascular watershed regions of the cerebrum, has been implicated in lesion development but impact on ongoing demyelination is unknown. ⋯ Chronic lesions in the occipital lobe showed the greatest reduction in MWF. Neuroanatomical localization of lesions to the occipital horns of the lateral ventricles, a watershed region, may contribute to ongoing demyelination in this lesion type.
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The changing MRI signal accompanying brain maturation in fetal brains can be quantified on apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) maps. Deviations from the natural course of ADC values may reflect structural pathology. The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of fetal pathologies on the ADC values in different regions of the fetal brain and their evolution with increasing gestational age. ⋯ The ADC values in different regions of the fetal brain and their evolution with increasing gestational age are influenced by pathologies compromising the cerebral maturation.