Chien-Yuan Eddy Lin^1,2, Bing Wu², Rui Li³, and Ma Lin ^3
1GE Healthcare, Taipei, Taiwan, ²GE Healthcare MR Research China, Beijing, China, People's Republic of, ³PLA general hospital, Beijing, China, People's Republic of

The aim of this study was to understand whether amide proton transfer (APT) contrast on brain tumor patient will be impacted by applying three different imaging sequences, spin-echo EPI, single-shot FSE, and a recent developed 3D FSE spiral. Although our finding on APT contrast appears to be similar among various sequences, careful consideration may be required when choosing the appropriate CEST readout sequences for your own applications.

Vivek Tiwari¹, Tomoyuki Mashimo², Sandeep Kumar Ganji¹, Zhongxu An¹, Keith Hulsey³, Vamsidhara Vemireddy², Shanrong Zhang¹, Elizabeth Maher², Robert Bachoo², and Changho Choi^1
1Advanced Imaging Research Center, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States, ²Department of Internal Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States,³Department of Radiology, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States

2-Hydroxyglutarate (2HG) is elevated in gliomas harboring IDH1 or IDH2 mutations, and can be a biomarker for the diagnosis of IDH-mutant gliomas. The present study was undertaken to develop PRESS MRS Methodology for 2HG-detection with enhanced precision, and studying 2HG kinetics together with metabolic profiling in Patient-Derived Xenograft Orthotropic Mouse model. In-vivo PRESS MRS was performed at an optimized long-TE of 96ms. A large inverted-signal of 2HG at 2.25-ppm was obtained from IDH-mutant gliomas, well separated from neighboring signals of positive-polarity, with minimal interference from macromolecules. The method was successfully employed to detect 2HG and brain metabolism with tumor progression.

Min-Chi Ku¹, Andreas Pohlmann¹, Sonia Waiczies¹, Joao dos Santos Periquito¹, Till Huelnhagen¹, and Thoralf Niendorf^1
1Berlin Ultrahigh Field Facility, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association, Berlin, Germany

Glioma progression involves complex interactions of tumor vasculature and infiltrating anti-tumor immune cells. As we previously found that mouse lacking ERK1 formed significantly smaller tumors, it was still not clear whether ERK1 deletion in the tumor vascular architecture might influence the outcome of glioma growth. To further study this, we examined the relative cerebral blood volume (rCBV) in the glioma tumor. R₂* changes induced by a blood-pool contrast agent, ferumoxytol, were quantified. Here, we established a model system to noninvasively monitor brain tumor angiogenesis, and found evidence supporting the role of ERK1 in regulating glioma growth via angiogenesis.

Rupsa Bhattacharjee¹, Prativa Sahoo², Pradeep Kumar Gupta³, and Rakesh Kumar Gupta^3
1Healthcare, Philips India ltd, Gurgaon, India, ²Healthcare, Philips India ltd, Bangalore, India, ³Radiology and Imaging, Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurgaon, India

Perfusion Studies in Pediatric Brain Tumors is a less explored area due to technical challenges of performing contrast enhanced perfusion in infant and children. This study is the first preliminary study reported in Dynamic Contrast Enhanced MRI perfusion involving both high grade and low grade brain tumors. Purpose of this study is to quantify the range of various perfusion metrics in high and low grade tumor as well as normal gray and white matter regions of brain. This ongoing study shows significant statistical difference in cerebral blood volume and fractional plasma volume in high grade and low grade tumor population. 

Peng Cao¹, Angela Jakary¹, Yan Li¹, Sarah J. Nelson¹, Doug Kelley², and Peder E. Z. Larson^1
1Department of Radiology, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States, ²GE Healthcare, Waukesha, WI, United States

Mechanisms to create a homogenous T₂ contrast at 7T should be robust to both B₀ and B₁ inhomogeneities. This issue was addressed by applying a zero-degree BIR-4 adiabatic pulse for T₂ preparation. Simulation and in vivo experiments in mouse brain verified the robustness and contrast of the preparation scheme at 7T. Application of this method was further demonstrated in a study of a patient with a brain tumor. The adiabatic T₂ weighting showed high intensity in the region of the tumor, suggesting that the proposed method is likely to be useful in screening and characterizing tumors.

Taiyuan Liu¹, Yan Bai², Xiaolei Song³, Jinyuan Zhou³, Panli Zuo⁴, Benjamin Schmitt⁵, and Meiyun Wang^2
1Henan Provincial People’s Hospital, Zhengzhou, China, People's Republic of, ²Zhengzhou, China, People's Republic of, ³Baltimore, MD, United States, ⁴Beijing, China, People's Republic of, ⁵Macquarie Park, Australia

To evaluate the value of length and offset varied saturation (LOVARS) in the diagnosis of gliomas, and compared with amide proton transfer (APT), We  performed  the study using LOVARS and APT imaging technique .And we found that APT  images is useful in distinguishing  low-grade and high-grade glioma, while LOVARS phase images shows better contrast between glioma and peripheral tissue, and  the  internal heterogeneous components of the glioma.

Suresh Emmanuel Joel¹, Roberto Garcia Alvarez², Juan Bachiller Egea³, Lucia Gonzalez Cortijo⁴, Vincente Martinez de Vega³, Rakesh Mullick¹, and Mar Jimenez de la Pena^3
1General Electric Global Research, Bangalore, India, ²General Electric Healthcare, Madrid, Spain, ³Departamento Diagnostico por la imagen, Hospital Universitario Quiron, Madrid, Spain, ⁴Departamento de Oncología Médica, Hospital Universitario Quiron, Madrid, Spain

More than three-fourth of chemotherapy treated cancer survivors have cognitive impairment, including memory loss, inability to think, lasting several years after completion of therapy, sometimes labelled as ‘chemobrain’. Previously, the default mode network (DMN) has been shown to be specifically vulnerable to chemotherapy. In this study we study changes in DMN connectivity after chemotherapy within the same patients. In healthy adults, the DMN is anti-correlated to task positive networks. We observe an increase in this anti-correlation between DMN regions and task positive network regions post-chemotherapy.

Lawrence Kenning¹, Martin Lowry², Martin D Pickles¹, Chris Roland Hill³, Shailendra Achawal³, and Chittoor Rajaraman^3
1Centre for MR Investigations, Hull York Medical School at University of Hull, Hull, United Kingdom, ²Hull York Medical School at University of Hull, Hull, United Kingdom, ³Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, Hull, United Kingdom

DTI, DCE and DSC MRI parameters obtained pre-surgery and post-chemoradiotherapy were used to predict overall survival in a cohort of patients with glioblastoma multiforme. Results suggest that preoperative diffusivity measurements contain prognostic information about survival. Following chemoradiotherapy, K^trans, v_e, rCBV and tumour volumes were found to have significant prognostic value with higher values associated with shorter overall survival. Cox regression analysis identified 2 volumes and 2 MR parameters, confirming the Kaplan-Meier findings that preoperative DTI and post-chemoradiotherapy DCE parameters have added prognostic value to more traditional prognostic features such as tumour volume.

Jinghua Wang¹, Mark Smith², and Lili He^3
1The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States, ²Radiology, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, United States, ³Center for Perinatal Research, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, United States

Gadolinium based contrast agents decrease T₁ times in pathologic regions of the brain and improve image contrast and lesion visualization with increased sensitivity and specificity.  Magnetization Prepared Rapid Gradient Echo (MPRAGE) sequence offer thinner slices, near seamless reformatting options, and lower specific absorption rates than 2D spin-echo based technique.  In this study, we optimize MPRAGE sequence using computer simulation to improve brain tumor enhancement and detection.  Compared with a Siemens default MPRAGE sequence, our optimized protocol greatly shortened scan time by around 60% without sacrificing tumor delectation sensitivity.

Haopeng Pang¹, Yan Ren¹, Zhenwei Yao¹, Jingsong Wu¹, Chengjun Yao¹, Xuefei Dang², Yong Zhang³, and Xiaoyuan Feng^1
1Affiliated Huashan Hospital of Fudan University, Shanghai, China, People's Republic of, ²The 307th Hospital of Chinese People’s liberation Army, Beijing, China, People's Republic of, ³MR Research China, GE Healthcare, Beijing, China, People's Republic of

This study provided a new non-invasive method to better discriminate between high-grade gliomas and primary nervous system lymphomas. We found the kurtosis parameters (MK and K_//) showed more obvious differences that can be used for differentiating between these two types of tumors than diffusion parameters (FA, MD, λ_// and λ⊥). The ROC curve analysis showed MK and K_// had the largest area under curve, which further confirmed that the kurtosis parameters MK and K_// could better separate these tumors than traditional diffusion parameters.

Sushmita Datta¹, Jay-Jiguang Zhu², Roy F Riascos-Castaneda¹, and Ponnada A Narayana^1
1Diagnostic and Interventional Imaging, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, United States, ²Neurosurgery, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, United States

Automated quantification of tumors and its components are important in monitoring disease status in glioblastoma patients. We have proposed an automatic segmentation procedure based on morphological grayscale reconstruction techniques to classify and identify tumor sub-regions using multi-modal MRI. 

Yan Li¹, Tracy L Luks¹, Jason C Crane¹, Sarah J Nelson¹, and Tracy R McKnight^2
1Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California, San Francisco, CA, United States, ²Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program, University of California, Oakland, CA, United States

This study evaluated the metabolite profiles that were acquired using short and long echo time (TE) magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (MRSI) for forty patients with non-enhancing gliomas, including 25 grade 2 and 15 grade 3 gliomas. Metabolite differences were detected between the lesions and white matter, as well as between grades. There were also differences in the T2 values between metabolites within the lesions that could influence the Cho/NAA ratios between short and long TE MRSI.

Hariharan Ravishankar¹, Igor Barani², Sheshadri Thiruvenkadam¹, Marc Mabray², KS Shriram¹, SoonMee Cha², Rakesh Mullick³, and Suresh Emmanuel Joel^3
1General Electric Global Research, Bangalore, India, ²University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States, ³Diagnostic Imaging and Biomedical Technologies, General Electric Global Research, Bangalore, India

In this work, we address the problem of registration of brain images to atlases in presence of large, space-occupying tumor pathologies. We provide an integrated registration framework to address two types of tumors - a) infiltrating tumors - which penetrate the surrounding tissues b) extrinsic tumors - which grow and compress the surrounding tissues. We propose a mathematical model to shrink extrinsic tumors before registration, thereby reversing the compression effects.

Vishal Patel¹ and Leith Hathout^2
1University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ²Harvard University, Boston, MA, United States

We outline a new model for the proliferation and necrosis of glioblastoma multiforme.  Our approach uniquely accounts both for the anisotropic migration of tumor cells through brain parenchyma and for central tumor necrosis.  Model parameters relating to cell division, cell migration, and tumor necrosis are estimated directly from serial MR imaging to generate a customized growth profile for each tumor.  The proposed model is shown to replicate observed tumor growth more closely than existing techniques.  We anticipate that improved modeling of tumor growth profiles will enable more effective tailoring of treatment regimens.

Greg O. Cron^1,2,3, Beckie Manouchehri⁴, Andrew Boivin³, Nader Zakhari^1,3, Brandon Zanette^5,6, Gerard H. Jansen^1,2,3, John Woulfe^1,2,3, Rebecca E. Thornhill^1,2,3, Andreas Greiser⁷, Ian G. Cameron^1,2,3,4, and Thanh B. Nguyen^1,2,3
1The Ottawa Hospital, Ottawa, ON, Canada, ²Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada, ³University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada, ⁴Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada,⁵University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, ⁶Peter Gilgan Centre for Research and Learning, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada, ⁷Siemens Healthcare GmbH, Erlangen, Germany

After a patient has received treatment for a high grade glioma, a new enhancing lesion presents a common diagnostic dilemma:  Malignant tumor recurrence and benign treatment-related changes (TRC) appear similar on conventional MRI.  MRI tracer kinetic studies may help distinguish recurrence from TRC.  We investigated whether Ktrans measurements using quantitative DCE-MRI can accurately diagnose recurrence.  We also studied the effect of the DCE T1 mapping method (VFA versus LL).  Ktrans values in recurrent tumor were higher than in TRC, providing sensitivity of 69-77%, specificity of 100%.  The choice of T1 mapping had little effect on diagnostic accuracy.  

Leonard Sunwoo^1,2, Tae Jin Yun^2,3, Roh-Eul Yoo^2,3, Soo Chin Kim^2,4, and Hye Young Sun^2,4
1Radiology, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam, Korea, Republic of, ²Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea, Republic of, ³Radiology, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea, Republic of, ⁴Radiology, Seoul National University Healthcare System Gangnam Center, Seoul, Korea, Republic of

Arterial spin labeling (ASL) magnetic resonance (MR) imaging could be used to assess the tumor blood flow (TBF). To distinguish glioblastoma (GBM) from brain metastasis, we compared TBF between the two groups by using visual grading and quantitative analyses. Both intratumoral and peritumoral blood flow were significantly higher in GBM than in brain metastasis. We propose that ASL-TBF can aid in differentiating GBM from brain metastasis either by qualitative or by quantitative methods.

Sumei Wang¹, Sanjeev Chawla¹, Maria Martinez-Lage², Tianyu Yin¹, Gaurav Verma¹, Robert A Lustig³, Steven Brem⁴, Suyash Mohan¹, Ronald L Wolf¹, Arati Desai⁵, and Harish Poptani^6
1Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ²Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ³Radiation Oncology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ⁴Neurosurgery, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ⁵Hematology-Oncology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ⁶Cellular and Molecular Physiology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom

The study was performed to determine whether changes in DTI and DSC parameters can aid in differentiating glioblastomas with pseudo-progression (PsP) from true-progression (TP) and partial response. MRI data from thirty patients with these diagnoses (based on pathological evaluation and clinical follow-up) were included. All patients underwent two MR scans before pathological confirmation. A significant increase in median rCBV and rCBV_max value was noted in TP compared with PsP, while none of the DTI parameters showed significant differences between groups. Our preliminary results indicate that changes in rCBV may be helpful in identifying PsP from TP.

Keiichi Kikuchi¹, Yoshiyasu Hiratsuka¹, Shiro Ohue², Shohei Kohno², and Teruhito Mochizuki^1
1Radiology, Ehime University School of Medicine, Ehime, Japan, ²Neurosurgery, Ehime University School of Medicine, Ehime, Japan

Various imaging modalities are commonly used for preoperative examinations of brain tumors. Here we evaluated the specificity of ADC, MRS, and PET-CT to predict the WHO glioma grade and identified potential correlations with the Ki-67 index as a marker of tumor cell proliferation. In this limited patients series, minimum ADC was the best predictor of the histological glioma grade and it was also significantly negatively correlated with the Ki-67 index indicating its potential as a reliable marker of cellular proliferation.

Shanker Raja¹, Ali Daghriri², Sadeq Wasil Al Dandan³, Tariq Ahmad Wani⁴, Muhammad Usman Manzoor⁵, Abdullah Ali Alrashed², Sarah Farooq⁶, William Plishker⁷, and Sharad George^8
1Radiology, Baylor College of Medicine, Bellaire, TX, United States, ²Medical Imaging, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, ³Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, ⁴KFMC-Riyadh, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, ⁵Radiology, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, ⁶King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, ⁷IGI Technologies, College Park, MD, United States, ⁸Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

Histogram metrics derived from a combination   preoperative MRI: AFDC and perfusion maps, appear to be promising in differentiation of posterior tumors

Kyung Won Kim¹, Sang Hyun Choi¹, Seung Chai Jung¹, Ja Youn Lee², Ho Sung Kim¹, and Seong Ho Park^1
1Radiology, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea, Republic of, ²National Evidence-based Healthcare Collaborating Agency, Seoul, Korea, Republic of

The current evidence in the literature shows that the rCBV of DSC-MRI is the most widely used perfusion MRI parameter. The rCBV can be used to predict disease progression and overall survival in patients with recurrent malignant glioma treated with BVZ. Various perfusion MRI parameters from DSC-MRI and DCE-MRI could play a role as pharmacodynamic biomarkers to evaluate the drug’s anti-angiogenic effect on tumor.

Koung Mi Kang¹, Seung Hong Choi¹, Moonjung Hwang², Soo Chin Kim³, Ji-Hoon Kim⁴, Tae Jin Yun⁴, and Chul-Ho Sohn^4
1Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea, Republic of, ²MR Applications and Workflow, GE Healthcare, Seoul, R.Korea, Seoul, Korea, Republic of, ³SNUH healthcare system gangnam center, Seoul, Korea, Republic of, ⁴Department of Radiology, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea, Republic of

In the brain metastasis, T1 shortening after the administration of gadolinium contrast agent may vary with the timing of contrast administration. Synthetic MRI enables quantitative measurements with relatively short times. Our study aimed to determine the optimal acquisition delay for quantitative imaging of brain metastases with contrast-enhanced synthetic MRI. This study revealed that there was no significant difference and relationship in the histogram parameters between three different delay time points of immediately, 8 minutes and 20 minutes after the contrast injection. Therefore, postcontrast quantitative MRI might be acquired regardless of time within 20 minutes.

YULIN WANG¹ and LIN MA^1
1Radiology, PLA General Hospital, beijing, China, People's Republic of

Perfusion made it possible to obtain measurements of vascularity within brain lesions. The vascularity of malignant tumor differs dramatically from that of radiation necrosis. Thus, tumor recurrence within irradiated lesions may be differentiated from regions of radiation necrosis with perfusion. 64 patients were prospectively entered into the study on the basis of the following criteria: previous treatment with radiation therapy after surgical resection for intraaxial tumors; new development of enhancing lesions within the radiation field. To compare 3D-ASL with DSC and to see whether 3D ASL-derived CBF values can be used as an alternative to DSC for their differentiation.

Tatsuya Yamamoto¹, Yuriko Ohtani², and Hirohiko Kimura^1
1Department of Radiology, University of Fukui, Fukui, Japan, ²Division of Radiology, University of Fukui Hospital, Fukui, Japan

Cerebral lymphomas are sometimes difficult to distinguish from glioblastomas based on routine magnetic resonance (MR) examination. Therefore, this study assessed the utility of a histogram analysis of the intratumoral enhanced region, using contrast-enhanced T1WI (CET1WI) with a 3D-spoiled gradient recalled aquisition in the steady state (SPGR) sequence, for cerebral lymphomas and glioblastomas, to determine whether the histogram parameters differed between the two tumors. There was significant difference (p < 0.01) in skewness between lymphomas and glioblastomas. This suggests the possibility of differential diagnosis of cerebral lymphomas and glioblastomas by histogram analysis of CET1WI.

A.M. Oros-Peusquens^1,2, M. Zimmermann³, E. Iordanishvili¹, O. Nikoubashman⁴, F. Jablawi⁴, B Ulus⁴, G Neuloh⁴, H. Cluesmann⁵, M. Wiesmann⁴, and N.J. Shah^1
1Institute of Medicine and Neuroscience (INM-4), Research Centre Juelich, Juelich, Germany, ²Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine 4 (INM-4), Research centre Juelich, Juelich, Germany, ³Institute of Medicine and Neuroscience (INM-4), Research Centre Juelich, Juelich, Georgia, ⁴University Hospital Aachen, Aachen, Germany, ⁵university Hospital Aachen, Aachen, Germany

Differentiation between meningioma types has implications in preoperative planning but is seldom achieved by conventional MRI. We investigate a multiparameter quantitative characterization of meningioma in clinically acceptable measurement times characterizing each tumour by its “qMRI fingerprint”. The parameters included are water content, T1, T2* and diffusion maps (MD, FA, MK, axonal water fraction, tortuosity) derived from a diffusion kurtosis acquisition. The “qMRI fingerprints” are distinct for each tumour.

Guangliang Ding¹, Jieli Chen¹, Michael Chopp^1,2, Lian Li¹, Tao Yan^1,3, Esmaeil Davoodi-Bojd¹, Qingjiang Li¹, Chengcheng Cui¹, Siamak P.N. Davarani¹, and Quan Jiang^1
1Neurology, Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, MI, United States, ²Physics, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, United States, ³Tianjin Geriatrics Institute, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin, China, People's Republic of

With a suture 2-hour occlusion and reperfusion stroke model and a low dose Streptozotocin injection combined with a high fat food diet diabetic model of young adult Wistar rats, longitudinal measurements of MRI demonstrated that bone marrow stromal cell treatment of stroke in type 2 diabetes mellitus rats, compared with the saline treated control rats, not only significantly reduced blood-brain barrier leakage and hemorrhagic spots starting from 1 week and 3 weeks after stroke (p<0.05) measured by contrast enhanced T1WI with Gd-DTPA and identified by SWI, respectively; but also significantly improves white matter remodeling after stroke measured by DSI.

Chengcheng Zhu¹, Xuefeng Zhang², Andrew J Degnan³, Qi Liu², Luguang Chen², Zhongzhao Teng⁴, David Saloner¹, and Jianping Lu^2
1Radiology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States, ²Radiology, Changhai Hospital, Shanghai, China, People's Republic of, ³Radilogy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States, ⁴Radiology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Intracranial large artery atheroma is a major cause of stroke, however its natural history is still poorly understood. In this study we followed 63 symptomatic patients who had intracranial atherosclerotic plaque for up to 3 years. Multi-contrast black blood vessel wall MRI and clinical brain imaging were performed. Initial results included 22 patients who were followed for 6 months showed an overall plaque volume progression rate of 0.8%, however with a large standard deviation (20.1%) and range (-45.9% to 40.1%). Patients with hypertension or low HDL tended to progress faster. The feasibility of MRI for monitoring intracranial plaque pathological changes was demonstrated.  

Tokunori Kimura¹, Naotakata Sakashita¹, and Mitsue Miyazaki^2
1Toshiba Medical Systems, Otawara, Japan, ²Toshiba Medical Research Institute, Vernon Hills, IL, United States

We proposed and assessed a simultaneous time-encoding for bipolar MRA technique (STEP-MRA), combining both the 4DASL-MRA of nulling background signals and PSIR BB-MRA with preserving Mz polarities and background stationary signals, which allows simultaneously providing using the same acquired data as the standard 4DASL-MRA. In addition, vessel visualization and SNR were improved by synthesizing multiple TI data. Although further parameter optimization and clinical evaluation are required, our proposed method has a potential to provide various information with limited acquisition data. 

Anita A. Harteveld¹, Anja G. van der Kolk¹, H. Bart van der Worp², Nikki Dieleman¹, Jeroen C.W. Siero¹, Hugo J. Kuijf³, Catharina J.M. Frijns², Peter R. Luijten¹, Jaco J.M. Zwanenburg^1,3, and Jeroen Hendrikse^1
1Radiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands, ²Neurology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands, ³Image Sciences Institute, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands

In recent years, multiple intracranial vessel wall MRI sequences have been developed for direct evaluation of the intracranial vessel wall and its pathology in vivo. These studies have mainly been performed on 3T and 7T field strengths. In the current study, we compared 3T and 7T MRI for visualizing both healthy intracranial arterial vessel wall as well as possible vessel wall lesions. Vessel wall visibility was significantly better at 7T even though there were more artefacts hampering assessment. Overall, more lesions were scored on 7T images; however – surprisingly – only half of all 3T lesions were seen at 7T.

Chengcheng Zhu¹, Henrik Haraldsson¹, Karl Meisel², Nerissa Ko², Michael Lawton³, John Grinstead⁴, Sinyeob Ahn⁴, Gerhard Laub⁴, Christopher Hess¹, and David Saloner^1
1Radiology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States, ²Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States, ³Neurological Surgery, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States, ⁴Siemens Healthcare, San Francisco, CA, United States

High resolution MRI of the intracranial vessel wall provides important capabilities for the assessment of intracranial vascular disease including atherosclerotic plaques and aneurysms. This study developed and optimized 3D high resolution (0.5mm isotropic) techniques for intracranial vessel wall imaging at 3T and 7T. The abilities of 3T clinical scanners and 7T research scanners were systematically compared through theoretical simulations and in vivo patient studies. We found 3D T1-weighted SPACE sequence could be used for whole brain intracranial vessel wall evaluation at both 3T and 7T. 7T provides significantly better image quality and improves the confidence of diagnosis.

Jackie Leung¹, James Duffin², and Andrea Kassner^1,3
1Physiology and Experimental Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada, ²Physiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, ³Medical Imaging, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) measured with BOLD MRI can be robustly acquired by altering blood flow with a square-wave CO₂ stimulus. However, the BOLD response to a step change is confounded by a temporal lag and transient period of signal change. Differences in temporal response between different tissues can lead to CVR underestimation. Transfer function analysis (TFA) provides a frequency domain analysis of CVR that is less sensitive to temporal variations. This study compares the results of TFA to conventional CVR analysis in children with and without sickle cell disease. 

Charles G Cantrell¹, Parmede Vakil^1,2, Sameer A Ansari³, and Timothy J Carroll^1,3
1Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern, Chicago, IL, United States, ²College of Medicine, University of Illinois, Chicago, IL, United States, ³Radiology, Northwestern, Chicago, IL, United States

We report the first evidence of diffusion corrected DCE-MRI modeled contrast permeability in intracranial aneurysms and show the diffusion model more accurately represents physiology than previous methods.  Permeability metrics, as measured in 23 patients, demonstrate a statistically significant trend with rupture risk as defined by anatomic imaging and clinical risk factors. 

Yuefa Tan¹, Ruiying Chen¹, Bin Chen¹, Juan Xu¹, Daokun Ren¹, Yingjie Mei², Queenie Chan³, Yuankui Wu¹, and Yikai Xu^1
1Department of Medical Imaging Center, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China, People's Republic of, ²Philips Healthcare, Guangzhou, China, People's Republic of, ³Philips Healthcare, HongKong, China, People's Republic of

This study was to evaluate the abilities of T1ρ and ADC to estimate the duration of ischemia in human, and focus on clinical application. We take a cross-sectional study to collect patients with brain ischemia in period of time(March 2014 to February 2015), and exploit the characteristics of ADC and T1ρ in brain ischemia in various stages of ischemia and uncover their relationships with ischemia stages. Our results indicate that T1ρ parametric results were elevated in the ischemic lesion, and increased over time of ischemia in a linear fashion. 

Yan Ren¹, Qian Zhou¹, Haopeng Pang¹, Yong Zhang², Zihua Su³, and Zhenwei Yao^1
1Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, People's Republic of, ²MR Research, GE Healthcare, Shanghai, China, People's Republic of, ³Advanced application, GE Healthcare, Beijing, China, People's Republic of

In moyamoya disease (MMD), the compensatory collateralization from external cerebral artery or bypass artery is essential to evaluate the severity of disease and perfusion efficacy of surgical revascularization. And the leptomeningeal anastomoses were regarded as significant contributors to the collateral blood supply. However, the characteristic of the compensatory collateralization has not been clarified up to now, such as the permeability of vessels, which could be the reason of rehemarrhage and other complications after the surgical revascularization for MMD. We hypothesize the high permeability of collateralization leads to rehemarrhage in MMD. In this work, quantitative assessment of 3D-pCASL and DCE-MRI suggests no significant increased permeability in the cortical areas with collateral neovascularization in MMD.  

Kevin M Johnson¹, Leonardo Rivera-Rivera¹, and Patrick A Turski^2
1Medical Physics, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Madison, WI, United States, ²Radiology, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Madison, WI, United States

Summary

Petrice M Cogswell¹, L Taylor Davis¹, Megan K Strother², Carlos C Faraco¹, Lori C Jordan³, Blaise deB Frederick⁴, Jeroen Hendrikse⁵, and Manus J Donahue^1
1Radiology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States, ²DXP Imaging, Louisville, KY, United States, ³Neurology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States, ⁴McLean Hospital, Boston, MA, United States, ⁵University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands

No study to date has assessed the relationship between intracranial vessel plaque and wall thickening and its impact on tissue-level function. A novel intracranial vessel wall imaging protocol and BOLD imaging were applied in patients with intracranial stenosis secondary to atherosclerosis and moyamoya disease (non-atherosclerotic stenosis).  The time of maximum correlation of BOLD data with the applied stimulus, the CVR time, calculated using a novel time regression technique, is prolonged in vascular territories with a proximal vessel wall lesion for both atherosclerosis and moyamoya patients.  The maximum z-statistic, a qualitative metric of CVR, is decreased in vascular territories with a proximal vessel wall lesion in moyamoya patients only.

Felix W Wehrli¹, Yongxia Zhou¹, Zachary B Rodgers¹, and Michael C Langham^1
1Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Smoking is well known to cause vasoconstriction as a result of the formation of reactive oxygen species, which reduce nitric oxide availability. Vasomotor reactivity can be measured in terms of the change in cerebral blood flow in response to a hypercapnic challenge. Here we measured the change in superior sagittal sinus flow at 2-second temporal resolution during breath-hold (a predominantly hypercapnic stimulus) and computed a breath-hold index (BHI) as the slope of the flow velocity-time curve in 20 nonsmokers and 13 chronic smokers. The data suggest reduced BHI in the smoking group (0.252±0.097 vs. 0.306±0.098 cm/s², p<0.07) indicative of dysregulation of vascular reactivity.

Makoto Obara¹, Osamu Togao², Tomoyuki Okuaki³, Shuhei Shibukawa⁴, Masami Yoneyama¹, and Marc Van Cauteren^3
1Healthcare, Philips Electronics Japan Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, ²Department of Clinical Radiology, Graduate School of Medical Science, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan, ³Philips Healthcare, Tokyo, Japan,⁴Department of Radiology, Tokai University Hospital, Kanagawa, Japan

A non-contrast enhanced intracranial three-dimensional dynamic magnetic resonance angiography (4D-MRA) based on pseudo-continuous arterial spin labelling with the  keyhole technique (4D-PACK) was implemented. Images acquired from three volunteers were compared with the data acquired without the keyhole technique. We show that the 4D-PACK can accelerate acquisition speed, while keeping flow dynamics information.

Zihao Zhang^1,2, Qi Yang^3,4, Zhaoyang Fan³, Xianchang Zhang^1,2, Yujiao Yang⁴, Jing An⁵, Zhentao Zuo¹, and Rong Xue^1,6
1State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Beijing MR Center for Brain Research, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, People's Republic of, ²Graduate School, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, People's Republic of, ³Biomedical Imaging Research Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ⁴Xuanwu Hospital, Beijing, China, People's Republic of, ⁵Siemens Shenzhen Magnetic Resonance Ltd., Shenzhen, China, People's Republic of, ⁶Beijing Institute for Brain Disorders, Beijing, China, People's Republic of

    In this study, we improved TOF-MRA and T1w-SPACE to a higher resolution for imaging perforating arteries and intracranial vessel walls at 7T. With the combination of the two techniques, we are for the first time able to depict the position of perforators and the vessel wall lesion in patients with ICAD. Small changes within the vessel wall may be revealed, and the certainty of the diagnosis may become better established, enabling better therapeutic management.

Zhaoyang Fan¹, Qi Yang^1,2, Zixin Deng^1,3, Shlee Song⁴, Xiuhai Guo⁵, Wouter Schievink⁶, Xiaoming Bi⁷, Gerhard Laub⁷, Patrick Lyden⁴, and Debiao Li^1,3
1Biomedical Imaging Research Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ²Radiology, Xuanwu Hospital, Beijing, China, People's Republic of, ³Bioengineering, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ⁴Neurology, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Beijing, CA, United States, ⁵Neurology, Xuanwu Hospital, Beijing, China, People's Republic of, ⁶Neurosurgery, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ⁷MR R&D, Siemens Healthcare, Los Angeles, CA, United States

High-resolution MR using variable-flip-angle 3D fast spin-echo (FSE) has emerged as a promising intracranial vessel wall imaging technique. However, its typical implementations on clinically available MR systems have several limitations. This work aimed to develop a 3D FSE-based method that allows for CSF-attenuated T1-weighted whole-brain vessel wall imaging within 8 min. Volunteer studies were performed during technical optimization. Preliminary clinical validation was conducted in patients with various vessel wall pathologies. The technique demonstrated excellent vessel wall delineation quality, diagnostic accuracy, and patient tolerance. It may potentially become a clinically practical imaging approach to stroke etiology assessment.     

Marco Piccirelli¹, Christiaan Hendrik Bas van Niftrik², Oliver Bozinov², Athina Pangalu¹, Antonio Valavanis¹, Luca Regli², and Jorn Fierstra^2
1Department of Neuroradiology, University Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, ²Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Our iterative algorithm evaluates transient phases of BOLD fMRI signal dynamics during a CO2 pseudo-square wave challenge and optimizes CO2 arrival time determination to increase sensitivity and reliability of cerebrovascular reactivity analysis. On 25 healthy controls and unilateral internal carotid occlusion patients, all BOLD-derived parameters maps are normalized in MNI space and combined for reference atlases and assess alterations within single patient. The transient phase durations, temporal delay maps and dynamic and static CVR maps were calculated. We determined the optimal CO2 arrival time and found that excluding the transient phases resulted in the best fit to the physiological data.

Joseph A Fisher^1,2,3, Olivia Sobczyk¹, Adrian P Crawley⁴, Julien Poublanc⁴, Paul Dufort¹, Lashmi Venkatraghavan⁵, David J Mikulis^1,4, and James Duffin^2,3
1Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, ²Department of Physiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, ³Departments of Anaesthesia, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada, ⁴Joint Department of Medical Imaging and the Functional Neuroimaging Laboratory, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada, ⁵Department of Anaesthesia, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada

We surveyed the varied patterns of BOLD changes in response to a ramp CO₂ stimulus ranging from hypocapnia to hypercapnia in 10 healthy individuals and 10 patients with steno-occlusive disease.  The patterns of response fell into 4 types, based on the two linear slopes fitted to each range.  Maps of these types on a voxel by voxel basis were compared to cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) calculated as the linear slope over the whole ramp.  We suggest that for assessing cerebrovascular reactivity, CVR and type scoring enhance the interpretation of each other, and that modeling the possible underlying patho/physiologies to explain the type patterns is the portal to further work.  

Yoshiyuki Watanabe¹, Hiroto Takahashi¹, Hisashi Tanaka¹, Atsuko Arisawa¹, Chisato Matsuo¹, Eri Yoshioka¹, Hajime Nakamura², and Noriyuki Tomiyama^1
1Radiology, Osaka University, Suita, Japan, ²Neurosurgery, Osaka University, Suita, Japan

The purpose of this study was to elucidate in vivo analysis of the flow dynamics of ACOM aneurysms from both A1 arteries using 4D-Flow and digital subtraction angiography (DSA). 2 out of 8 ACOM aneurysms showed intra-aneurysm flow from both A1 arteries and 6 other patients showed the unilateral A1 inflow. Inflow findings of all patients are consistent with 4D-Flow and DSA. 4D-FLOW MRI is able to visualize cross flow in ACOM aneurysms.

Jing Li¹, Xuewei Zhang², Jie Lu¹, Zhentao Zuo³, Rong Xue³, Yong Fan⁴, Yuzhou Guan⁵, and Weihong Zhang^1
1Department of Radiology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China, People's Republic of, ²Department of Interventional Radiology, China Meitan General Hospital, Beijing, China, People's Republic of, ³State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Beijing MR Center for Brain Research, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, People's Republic of, ⁴Department of Radiology, School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ⁵Department of Neurology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China, People's Republic of

It is a resting-state fMRI( rs-fMRI) study of patients with motor disturbance after acute ischemic stroke. We assessed the functional connectivity (FC) changes of the ipsilesional primary motor cortex (M1) within the brain before and after the repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) by rs-fMRI. The research not only gave theoretical support of the rTMS treatment in stroke patients but also investigated the cerebral functional changes in motor recovery.

Stephan Kaczmarz¹, Jens Göttler¹, Anne Kluge¹, Dimitrios C. Karampinos², Claus Zimmer¹, and Christine Preibisch^1,3
1Department of Neuroradiology, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany, ²Department of Radiology, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany, ³Clinic for Neurology, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany

Severe intracranial arterial stenosis (SIAS) is a major health issue as it often accounts for strokes.  Here, we present preliminary data from a clinical study in patients with SIAS compared to healthy controls. The major aim was to evaluate the reliability of perfusion and oxygenation related measures by analyzing their hemispheric symmetry to assess their potential diagnostic capabilities. Preliminary results imply symmetry of all measures between hemispheres of healthy controls. Regarding patients, only pCASL-based CBF implies a reduced perfusion on the side of carotid artery stenosis which is in accordance to recent literature and is currently under further investigation.

Lena Václavu¹, Henk Mutsaerts², Pim van Ooij¹, Bart J Biemond³, John C Wood⁴, Charles BLM Majoie¹, Ed van Bavel⁵, and Aart J Nederveen^1
1Radiology, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, Netherlands, ²Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada, ³Internal Medicine, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, Netherlands,⁴Cardiology, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ⁵Biomedical Engineering and Physics, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Arterial spin labelling perfusion MRI was employed with an acetazolamide challenge to probe the cerebrovascular physiology in patients with sickle cell disease and matched controls. Cerebral blood flow was estimated at baseline and cerebrovascular reserve(CVR) was calculated after vasodilation with acetazolamide. We found that patients had limited CVR compared to controls, and that the patients with the highest CBF at baseline also had the smallest response to acetazolamide. ASL-based CBF measurements with ACZ showed robust CVR results indicating the cerebral hemodynamics of some patients may be impaired.

Chunmei Li¹, Guodong Song¹, Yuhui Chen¹, Xuna Zhao², Jinyuan Zhou², and Min Chen^1
1Beijing Hospital, Beijing, China, People's Republic of, ²Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States

This study is to evaluate the longitudinal Amide Proton Transfer-weighted (APTw) signal changes in patients with stroke after treatment. APT weighted images of stroke patients was acquired, including non-treatment and post treatment. 91.7% patients (22/24) showed gradual increased APT values with the extension of time, accompanied with the clinical symptoms improvement. The other 2 patients (8.3%) showed further decreased APT values in the second scan (the first scan after treatment), accompanied with the clinical symptoms aggravation. The increase of APT weighted signal may indicate the improvement of clinical symptoms while the decrease may indicate the aggravating of clinical symptoms. 

Liuhong Zhu¹, Zhongping Zhang², Qihua Cheng¹, Phillip Zhe Sun³, and Gang Guo^1
1Radiology, Xiamen Second Hospital, Xiamen, China, People's Republic of, ²MR Research China, GE Healthcare, Beijing, China, People's Republic of, ³Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, United States

One hundred and thirteen patients with acute ischemic stroke underwent DKI sequence scanning. 131 lesions were outlined and divided into six groups. The changed percentages of DKI indices (FA%, MD%, Da%, Dr%, MK%, Ka%, Kr%) relative to normal contra-lateral ROI were computed. The statistical analysis results illustrated that there was a trend that when the acute ischemic stroke affected tissue mostly contained white matter, the complexity of micro-structure changes of the tissue was much higher than other affected locations. Also, the kurtosis-derived parameters presented to have greater potential in distinguishing each group.

Michael Markl¹, Edouard Semaan¹, LeRoy Stromberg ¹, James Carr¹, Shyam Prabhakaran¹, and Jeremy Collins^1
1Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States

The purpose of this study was to employ aortic 4D flow MRI and brain TOF MRA for the evaluation of retrograde diastolic flow from the descending aorta into the supra-aortic vessels as a mechanism for embolic stroke. In 35 cryptogenic stroke patients, 4D flow MRI demonstrated close to 50% concordance with stroke location on imaging with retrograde diastolic flow into the feeding vessels of the affected cerebral area, identifying a potential etiology for cryptogenic stroke. Our findings further document the importance of taking into account variants in cerebrovascular anatomy which identified retrograde embolization risk in an additional 14% of subjects.

Feng Wang^1,2, Zhongliang Zu^1,2, Tung-Lin Wu^2,3, John C. Gore^1,2,3, and Li Min Chen^1,2
1Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States, ²Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States, ³Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States

Non-human primates provide a valuable pre-clinical model for studying spinal cord injuries. Here we examine the fingerprints in the Z-spectra of abnormal tissues and cysts surrounding the lesion site after spinal cord injury, regionally and longitudinally. Characteristic chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) and nuclear Overhauser enhancement (NOE) effects extracted from Z-spectra may enable the non-invasive assessment of spontaneous recovery from traumatic injury.

Mingming Zhu¹, Alice H Shum-Siu², Emily Martin³, David S Magnuson², and Chin K Ng^1
1Department of Diagnostic Radiology, University of Louisville School of Medicine, Louisville, KY, United States, ²Departments of Neurological Surgery, Anatomical Sciences & Neurobiology, and Bioengineering, University of Louisville School of Medicine, Louisville, KY, United States, ³Department of Bioengineering, University of Louisville School of Medicine, Louisville, KY, United States

Current study was to focus on the proton MRS detection of metabolite profile of spinal cord gray matter just caudal to a kainic acid injury in rats 14 days after administration of the excitotoxic agent, and further to correlate the MRS findings to the histopathology of the animal model.  Quantitative evaluations of different metabolites were also performed to identify potential MR based biomarkers of neurotoxicity.

Marco Battiston¹, Torben Schneider², Claudia Angela Michela Gandini Wheeler-Kingshott^1,3, and Rebecca S Samson^1
1NMR Research Unit, Queen Square MS Centre, Department of Neuroinflammation, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, United Kingdom, ²Philips Healthcare, Guildford, United Kingdom, ³Brain Connectivity Center, C. Mondino National Neurological Institute, Pavia, Italy

The T₁ relaxation time is a fundamental quantitative Magnetic Resonance parameter widely used to characterize healthy and pathological tissue. However, investigation of quantitative T₁ in the human spinal cord has been limited to date. In this work, we propose a scan time efficient protocol in the spinal cord for Inversion Recovery T₁ mapping, which is considered the “gold-standard” method. The mean (± standard deviation) T₁ for white matter and grey matter in the cervical spinal cord were found to be respectively 1096 (±26) ms and 1153 (±24) ms.

Evan I Wen Chen¹, Andrew Yung², Barry Bohnet¹, Alexander Rauscher^1,3, and Piotr Kozlowski^1,3
1MRI Research Center, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, ²Research Scientist, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, ³Radiology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

GRE images provide strong gray/white matter contrast that is determined by the local MR resonance frequency, which has been shown to be strongly influenced by the local tissue microstructure. While studies have looked at well-defined architectures in rat spinal cord to study this biophysical mechanism, the specific effects of axon/myelin microstructure on frequency shifts is difficult to evaluate independently. Using lysolecithin to induce chemical demyelination while preserving axonal integrity, we assess predominantly myelin-related effects on frequency shifts in rat dorsal column as it demyelinates/remyelinates, providing insight important to applications of frequency shift mapping to demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis.

Paola Valsasina¹, Maria Assunta Rocca¹, Paolo Preziosa¹, Mohammad Ahmad Abdullah Ali Aboulwafa^1,2, Mark Andrew Horsfield³, Giancarlo Comi⁴, Andrea Falini⁵, and Massimo Filippi^1
1Neuroimaging Research Unit, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy, ²Clinical Neurology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt,³Xinapse System Ltd, West Bergholt, Essex, United Kingdom, ⁴Department of Neurology, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy, ⁵Department of Neuroradiology, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy

In this study, we performed a comprehensive assessment of cervical cord lesions in 133 patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) on 3D T1-weighted scans at 3.0 T. Lesion occurrence, regional distribution, influence on cord atrophy and disability were evaluated. T1 lesions were detected in a large proportion (85%) of MS patients, with a higher frequency of cord lesions in the progressive than in the relapsing forms of the disease. There was only a modest correlation between cord T1 lesions and atrophy. Both cord T1 lesions and atrophy were significant and independent contributors to patient disability. 

Suchandrima Banerjee¹, Ken-Pin Hwang^2,3, Peng Lai¹, Marcel Warntjes⁴, and Ajit Shankaranarayanan^1
1Global MR Applications & Workflow, GE Healthcare, Menlo Park, CA, United States, ²Global MR Applications & Workflow, GE Healthcare, Houston, TX, United States, ³Department of Imaging Physics, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, United States, ⁴Synthetic MR Technologies AB, Stockholm, Sweden

Recently, several techniques for rapid simultaneous mapping of proton density and T1, T2 relaxation parameters from a single acquisition and generation of synthetic images of any desired image contrast have been demonstrated, mostly in the brain. Such an approach could potentially shorten a spine MRI exam which typically consists of multiple 2D acquisitions with different contrast weightings. But even routine spine MRI is fraught with technical challenges such as motion and inhomogeneity. So in this work we explore the feasibility of obtaining synthetic MRI images of usable image quality in the spine using a 2D quantitative mapping technique.

Ammar Chaudhry¹, Arash Kamali², Daniel Herzka ³, Kenneth C Wang⁴, John carrino⁵, and Ari Blitz^2
1Diagnostic Radiology, Johns Hopkins Medical Institute, Elkridge, MD, United States, ²Neuroradiology, Johns Hopkins Medical Institute, Baltimore, MD, United States, ³Radiology, Johns Hopkins Medical Institute, Baltimore, MD, United States, ⁴Radiology, Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, MD, United States, ⁵Radiology, Hospital of Special Surgery, New York, NY, United States

Thoracic sympathetic chain ganglia can be readily seen and well characterized on pre-contrast 3D-CISS MRI. This technique can aid in initial evaluation of potential stellate and/or SCG pathology as well allow for post-treatment follow-up. 

Rebecca Sara Samson¹, Marco Battiston¹, Claudia Angela Michela Gandini Wheeler-Kingshott^1,2, and Marios C Yiannakas^1
1NMR Research Unit, Queen Square MS Centre, Department of Neuroinflammation, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, United Kingdom, ²Brain Connectivity Center, C. Mondino National Neurological Institute, Pavia, Italy

The Magnetisation Transfer Ratio (MTR), and quantitative Magnetisation Transfer (MT) parameters have proven to be sensitive to the diseased spinal cord (SC), however in vivo quantitative imaging of the cord is challenging. Rapid acquisition sequences such as Echo Planar Imaging (EPI) are desirable but may suffer from artefacts and image distortions. Here we present results from the use of single-shot ZOOM-EPI to reduce acquisition time and distortions in SC MTR mapping. The mean SC MTR value for 9 subjects was 38.8 (±4.05). The mean scan-rescan coefficient of variation for measuring SC MTR (from 5 subjects) was 4.39%.

Robert L Barry^1,2, Benjamin N Conrad¹, Seth A Smith^1,2, and John C Gore^1,2
1Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Nashville, TN, United States, ²Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States

Spinal cord functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have previously used task-based paradigms, but we recently showed the existence of resting state networks within the cord at 7 Tesla. More recently we have successfully translated the acquisition, preprocessing, and analysis methods developed at 7 Tesla to more clinically relevant 3T scanners. Our results suggest that a run of approximately 6 mins is sufficient at 3T if resting state signals undergo bandpass filtering with frequencies up to 0.17 Hz. Thus, functional connectivity measures in the cervical cord are practical for widespread clinical applications for studying diseases of the central nervous system.

Jennifer Lefeuvre^1,2, Qi Duan¹, Jacco A de Zwart¹, Peter van Gelderen¹, Stéphane Lehericy², Steven Jacobson¹, Daniel S Reich¹, and Govind Nair^1
1NINDS, NIH, Bethesda, MD, United States, ²INSERM U1127/CNRS UMR7225, CENIR, Brain and Spine Institute, Paris, France

MRI of the thoracic spinal cord (t-spine) is challenging especially due to motion, flow, and susceptibility artifacts. Improving the image quality and resolution in t-spine has the potential to improve visualization of anatomy, as well as lesions in neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS). Towards this end, we have developed high-resolution t-spine imaging techniques at 7T with a custom built RF transmit-receive coil and navigator based frequency correction. 

Tao Gong¹, Guangbin Wang¹, and Weibo Chen^2
1Shandong University, Jinan, China, People's Republic of, ²Shanghai, China, People's Republic of

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is widely used to narrow the differential diagnosis in the preoperative study of spinal cord tumors. The use of a medium in MRI is preferred to improve visualization of tumor’s intrinsic characteristics and boundaries, and to identify reactive changes (such as cysts and dilated veins) in adjacent tissues. Most times, it is easy to determine whether a lesion arises from the spinal cord itself or from the IDEM space according to common MRI findings, however, at other times, this might be difficult. There have been reported cases of schwannoma located at IDEM space misdiagnosed with IMT. Thus, radiologists must discern the characteristic imaging features of IDEMs to distinguish them from IMTs. The presence of vein enlargement is often a sign in some cases of intradural spinal tumors , most of which are extramedullary. A perimedullary vein enlargement sign around an intradural spinal tumor (without dilated veins in the tumor)has not been reported, which might be an imaging mark to differentiate IDEMTs from IMTs.The purpose of this study was to determine the added value of the perimedullary spinal vein enlargement sign on MRI in helping to distinguish IDEMTs from IMTs.

Yumi Koizumi¹, Masaru Sonoda¹, Tsutomu Inaoka², Hideki Nagatomo¹, and Hitoshi Terada^2
1Division of Radiology, Seirei Sakura Citizen Hospital, Sakura, Japan, ²Department of Radiology, Toho University Sakura Medical Center, Sakura, Japan

Currently, various 3D MR sequences such as 3D FSE, GRE, and steady-state sequences have been developed and used to obtain MR images of submillimeter thicknesses in the spine. However, the question,“which 3D sequence has a better image contrast of the tissues in spinal MRI?”, has come up. Therefore, we examined optimal imaging parameters of variable refocus flip angle 3D FSE (Cube) and 3D Fiesta-c sequences for T2-weighted images in cervical spine MRI and compared the two different 3D sequences for better image contrasts of the tissues on T2-weighted images in cervical spine MRI. In conclusion, 3D FSE Cube T2-weighted images has excellent image contrasts between the spinal cord versus other tissues except cerebrospinal fluid, vertebral body, and subcutaneous fat in the cervical spine compared to 3D Fiesta-c T2-weighted images. Therefore, 3D FSE Cube sequence is believed to be more appropriate for T2-weighted images in cervical spine MRI compared to 3D Fiesta-c sequence.

Zhiwei Shen¹, Yanlong Jia¹, Tingting Nie¹, Tao Zhang¹, Gen Yan¹, and Renhua Wu^1
1The 2nd Affilited Hosptial of Shantou Universtiy Medical College, Shantou, China, People's Republic of

Diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) is one of the main complications of long-term diabetes and the incidence is 60% to 90%. However, there is no objective  noninvasive method to detect the degree of damage of DPN and its pathogenesis remains unknown. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has the advantages of high spatial and temporal resolution, which had been used to detect neuron activity. In this study, the activation in the lumbar spinal cord of by electric stimulation were detected. Elevated activation percentage changes of DPN were found and the activation changes have the correlated relatioship with blood biochemical indexes such as glucose, the total cholesterol and haemoglobin A1c.

Lihua Sun¹, Yunlong Song², Huisheng Zheng¹, and Lizhi Xie^3
1Radiology Department, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, HeFei, China, People's Republic of, ²Department of CT &MRI, Air Force General Hospital, Beijing, China, People's Republic of, ³GE Healthcare, MR Research China, Beijing, Beijing, China, People's Republic of

The IDEAL acquisition can generate a water, fat, in-phase and out-phase data sets for clear tissue differentiation in a single sequence. It offers a great opportunity for imaging the nerve root compression. In this work, we demonstrated the feasibility of IDEAL sequence to image the anatomic structure and the whole contort of the lumbosacral nerve roots as well as the microstructural of lumbosacral nerve on the canals of lumbar spinal nerves is possible.IDEAL imaging on lumbosacral nerve roots can be valuable for clinical diagnosis to estimate the nerve compression, and provide detailed information for the right treatment at early-stage.

Marios C Yiannakas¹, Polymnia Louka¹, Francesco Grussu¹, Ferran Prados^1,2, Rebecca S Samson¹, Marco Battiston¹, Sebastien Ourselin², David H Miller^1,3, and Claudia Angela Michela Gandini Wheeler-Kingshott^1,4
1NMR Research Unit, Queen Square MS Centre, Department of Neuroinflammation, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, United Kingdom, ²Translational Imaging Group, Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, University College London, London, United Kingdom, ³NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, UCL-UCLH, London, United Kingdom, ⁴Brain Connectivity Center, C. Mondino National Neurological Institute, Pavia, Italy

The use of imaging methods to study the lower spinal cord has been hindered by a number of technical challenges; hence the relative contribution of pathology affecting the lower spinal cord to the observed clinical symptoms remains largely unexplored. In this pilot study, we investigate the feasibility of obtaining tissue-specific (grey matter and white matter) diffusion tensor imaging metrics within the lumbosacral enlargement in vivo in healthy volunteers using reduced field-of-view echo planar imaging on a clinical 3T MRI system. Preliminary results show that such measures may be obtained reliably and within clinically acceptable scan times.

Manuel Taso^1,2,3,4, Oliver M. Girard^1,3, Guillaume Duhamel^1,3, Maxime Guye^1,3, Jean-Philippe Ranjeva^1,3,4, and Virginie Callot^1,3,4
1CRMBM UMR 7339, Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, Marseille, France, ²LBA UMR T 24, Aix-Marseille Université, IFSTTAR, Marseille, France, ³CEMEREM, AP-HM, Pôle d'imagerie médicale, Marseille, France, ⁴iLab-Spine international associate laboratory, Marseille/Montréal, France

Handedness is known to influence brain structure. However, no evidences of such influence in the spinal cord (SC) exist. Hence, we propose to use multi-parametric MRI (DTI and inhomogeneous MT, both sensible to microstructural properties), combined with atlas-based analysis in specific fascicles, to assess the influence of handedness on the SC structure. Results demonstrated that right-handers presented higher ihMTR/MTR values in the right motor tracts, suggesting an asymmetric myelination while left-handers did not present differences between left and right regions. This is consistent with brain findings suggesting that right-handedness is associated with higher structural asymmetry in the central nervous system.

Jennifer Lefeuvre^1,2, Joseph R Guy¹, Nick Luciano¹, Emily Leibovitch¹, Mathieu D Santin², Afonso C Silva¹, Steve Jacobson¹, Stéphane Lehericy², Daniel S Reich¹, and Pascal Sati^1
1NINDS, NIH, Bethesda, MD, United States, ²INSERM U1127/CNRS UMR7225, CENIR, Brain and Spine Institute, Paris, France

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a demyelinating disease that affects the entire central nervous system, with more than 90% of patients showing focal or diffuse abnormalities in the spinal cord (SC). Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) in marmosets is an attractive animal model of MS due to its radiological presentation with brain lesions that mimic MS¹. However, spinal cord lesions in marmoset EAE have not yet been well characterized. The proposed methodology allows high-quality, high-resolution imaging of SC lesions in autopsied marmosets with EAE. The artifact-free images allowed accurate detection of focal and confluent rim lesions along the edges of the SC.

Samantha By^1,2, Ed Mojahed^2,3,4, Robert L. Barry^2,4, and Seth A. Smith^2,4
1Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States, ²Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States, ³Philips Healthcare, Cleveland, OH, United States, ⁴Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States

Multiband excitation with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was implemented at 3T to enable characterization of the cervical spinal cord and brainstem in a clinically feasible scan time.  The efficiency of the multiband acquisition (9 minutes) was compared to a standard acquisition (18 minutes), which included all of the same parameters except no multiband was applied. Results with multiband generated high-resolution images with similar SNR to the standard (whole cord: multiband – 6.60, no multiband – 6.14).  Additionally, DTI measurements from the multiband acquisition were in good agreement to the standard, yielding a percent difference of less than 3% for the cervical spine. 

Peng Sun¹, Kim J. Griffin¹, Robert T. Naismith², Anne H. Cross², and Sheng-Kwei Song^1
1Radiology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, United States, ²Neurology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, United States

DTI failed to detect the extent of axonal loss which plays a significant role in irreversible neurological impairments in MS and NMO patients. Our results suggest diffusion basis spectrum imaging (DBSI) may serve as a useful method to quantify the extent of axonal loss and confounding pathologies in RRMS and NMO.    

Devon M Middleton¹, Shiva Shahrampour¹, Scott H Faro¹, Sona Saksena², Mahdi Alizadeh¹, Chris J Conklin², Winston Liu³, Govind Nair⁴, Laura Krisa², MJ Mulcahey², and Feroze B Mohamed^2
1Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ²Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ³University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States, ⁴National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, United States

As more advanced imaging techniques are used for the spinal cord (such as DTI) it is important to examine potential relationships to other injury biomarkers. This study was to examine correlations between DTI metrics and spinal cord cross sectional area in pediatric subjects with spinal cord injury. Cord cross section data was acquired using a recently developed technique for semi-automated spinal cord segmentation and measurement of spinal cord cross sectional area. Fractional anisotropy was found to be strongly significantly correlated with spinal cord cross sectional area in the injured subjects.

Matthias Weigel¹ and Oliver Bieri^1
1Dept. of Radiology, Radiological Physics, University of Basel Hospital, Basel, Switzerland

For fast spinal cord images of high in-plane resolution and estimable contrast, an image combination of different inversion recovery (IR) prepared balanced steady state free precession (bSSFP) images acquired by a Modified Look Locker IR (MOLLI) sequence with fixed RR-intervals is suggested. The strength of the approach lies in its simplicity and that for short acquisition times of currently about 2mins per slice already a good contrast can be achieved at the high in-plane resolution of 0.4mm.

Nico Papinutto¹, Esha Datta¹, Alyssa H Zhu¹, Julio Carballido-Gamio², Regina Schlaeger^1,3, Sinyeob Ahn⁴, Kevin Johnson⁴, Lara Stables⁵, William A Stern¹, Gerhard Laub⁴, and Roland G Henry^1
1Neurology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States, ²Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States,³Neurology, University Hospital Basel, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland, ⁴Siemens Healthcare USA, San Francisco, CA, United States, ⁵Neuroscience Imaging Center, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States

The goal of the present work was to test the reliability of the C2-C3 spinal cord gray matter and total cord areas measurements performed using a 2D-PSIR sequence. Nine healthy subjects were scanned twice with repositioning in between the scans (test/retest) on three different 3T scanners with different hardware. On the phase sensitive-reconstructed images, total cord area was measured in a semi-automated way and gray matter area was estimated by using an automatic segmentation method. Evaluations of contrast to noise ratio, intra-scanner and inter-scanner reliability suggest that multicenter studies using a 2D-PSIR sequence are feasible.

Esha Datta¹, Nico Papinutto¹, Regina Schlaeger¹, Julio Carballido-Gamio¹, Alyssa Zhu¹, and Roland G Henry^1
1UCSF, San Francisco, CA, United States

This study demonstrates the accuracy and reliability of a new method for automatic segmentation of spinal cord gray matter in 2D PSIR images at 3T of the C2-C3 spinal cord level in healthy controls.  This method deforms an initial contour, based on registration from a template, using an active contours algorithm to ultimately obtain the final gray matter segmentation.  When comparing the automatic segmentations with manual segmentations in 12 subjects, the Dice coefficients ranged from .82 to .93, with an average of .88.  In 8 additional subjects that were scanned twice, the percent changes ranged from 1% to 6%.

Matthias Weigel¹, Orso Pusterla¹, Monika Gloor¹, and Oliver Bieri^1
1Dept. of Radiology, Radiological Physics, University of Basel Hospital, Basel, Switzerland

A high-resolution T1 mapping protocol for the spinal cord (SC) based on ultra-fast RF spoiled gradient echo sequences with initial precise B1-Tx mapping was developed. The measured T1 values for white matter (WM-SC) of 976ms and for gray matter (GM-SC) of 1154ms deviate notably from the corresponding T1 values found for the human cerebellum at 3T. This finding may partially explain the relatively low contrast between GM-SC and WM-SC frequently observed in SC imaging. Furthermore, the knowledge of these precise T1 values will allow to set up dedicated SC imaging protocols with an optimized GM-SC/WM-SC contrast in the future.

Borjan Gagoski^1,2, Patrick McDaniel³, André J. W. van der Kouwe^2,4, Himanshu Bhat⁵, Lawrence L. Wald^2,4,6, Elfar Adalsteinsson^3,6, P. Ellen Grant^1,2, and M. Dylan Tisdall^2,4
1Fetal Neonatal Neuroimaging and Developmental Science Center, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States, ²Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States, ³Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States, ⁴Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States, ⁵Siemens Medical Solutions USA Inc, Charlestown, MA, United States, ⁶Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology, Institute of Medical Engineering and Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States

Although heavily used in clinical fetal imaging due to its encoding efficiency, the image quality of T₂-weighted singe-shot fast-spin-echo (ss-FSE, or HASTE) acquisitions is often compromised by fetal head motion. We have implemented and tested an enhanced version of the HASTE acquisition scheme that includes EPI-based volumetric navigators (EPI-vNavs) played each TR, enabling detection and estimation of fetal head motion along six degrees of freedom in real time, while maintaining equivalent T₂ contrast in the fetal head compared to the original HASTE acquisition. 

Maria Kuklisova Murgasova¹, Georgia Lockwood Estrin¹, Rita G. Nunes^1,2, Mary Rutherford¹, and Jo Hajnal^1
1King's College London, London, United Kingdom, ²Instituto de Biofisica e Engenharia Biomedica, Faculdade de Ciencias, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

We present a novel method for correction of geometric distortions induced by static B0 field in fetal EPI. The method estimates distortion by including a distortion-correction step in the slice to volume reconstruction of orthogonal EPI stacks with orthogonal phase encoding directions, in the form of non-rigid registration with a Laplacian constraint. We show that the proposed method achieves better consistency with reconstructed ssFSE volumes than EPI volumes constructed from data corrected by B0 field map. The registration-based distortion correction is thus a viable alternative to acquisition of B0 field map.

Lau Brix^1,2, Steffen Ringgaard¹, Puk Sandager³, Olav Bjørn Petersen³, Thomas Sangild Sørensen^4,5, Erik Lundorf¹, and Brian Stausbøl-Grøn^1
1MR Research Centre, Aarhus University Hospital, Skejby, Aarhus N, Denmark, ²Department of Procurement & Clinical Engineering, Region Midt, Aarhus N, Denmark, ³Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Aarhus University Hospital, Skejby, Aarhus N, Denmark, ⁴Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus N, Denmark, ⁵Department of Computer Science, Aarhus University, Aarhus N, Denmark

Diagnostic image quality of MRI can be hampered by fetal movements during data acquisition which may limit its diagnostic use (1;2). We propose an interactive real-time MRI technique which may serve as an alternative to traditional fetal MRI for anthropometrics or as a supplement for representation of fetal brain structures in cases in which fetal motion causes challenges in relation to obtaining optimal slice planes using conventional MRI techniques.

bin zhang^1
1Department of Radiology, Xijing Hospital, xi'an, China, People's Republic of

Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging appears to be increasing used for the diagnosis of abnormalities in fetuses because of the absence of ionizing radiation and superior contrast of soft tissues. However, the T1-weighted 3D MR imaging for fetus remains very challenging due to the respiratory motion of the mother and the movement of the fetus. In this study, we evaluated the feasibility of a free-breathing 3D T1-weighted gradient-echo imaging with radial data sampling for fetus imaging, and compared with a standard breath-hold imaging with Cartesian k-space acquisition

Vincent Kyu Lee¹, Meredith Monsour², Sudhir Pathak², Vincent Schmithorst³, Catherine Fissell², Ashok Panigrahy^1,3, and Walt Schneider^2
1Radiology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States, ²University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States, ³Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

High angular-resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI) is the best imaging technique to distinguish crossing fibers and high turning angle neuronal tracts, which is critical for identifying and characterizing the microstructural changes in neuro pathology and traumatic brain injury.  Its main disadvantage has been the lengthy scan time needed to acquire analyzable images – a challenge especially in children and neonates who do not tolerate long scanning sessions. This study presents the preliminary fiber tractography of healthy neonatal and pediatric subjects acquired using multiband multi-shell HARDI sequence within a practicable scan time without sacrificing image quality.  

Manuel Blesa¹, Ahmed Serag¹, Alaistir G Wilkinson², Devasuda Anblagan^1,3, Emma J Telford¹, Rozalia Pataki¹, Sarah A Sparrow¹, Gillian Macnaught⁴, Scott I Semple⁴, Mark E Bastin³, and James P Boardman^1,3
1MRC Centre for Reproductive Health, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, ²Department of Radiology, Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, ³Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, ⁴Clinical Research Imaging Centre, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

We created a neonatal brain atlas of healthy subjects that can be applied to multi-modal MRI data. Structural and diffusion 3T MRI scans were acquired after birth from 25 neonates born at term. The SRI24/TZO atlas was propagated to the neonatal data using temporal registration via childhood templates (NIHPD), with the final atlas (the Edinburgh Neonatal Atlas, ENA25) constructed using iterative averaging of T1-weighted volumes. The computed transformations were applied to T2-weighted data, diffusion maps and tissue probability maps to provide a multi-modal atlas with 107 anatomical regions; and we have generated a symmetric version to facilitate studies of laterality.

J-Donald Tournier^1,2, Rui Pedro A. G. Teixeira^1,2, Maria Murgasova^1,2, A. David Edwards^2,3, Joseph V. Hajnal^1,2, and Serena J. Counsell^2,3
1Biomedical Engineering, King's College London, London, United Kingdom, ²Centre for the Developing Brain, King's College London, London, United Kingdom, ³Perinatal Imaging and Health, King's College London, London, United Kingdom

Myelin mapping is of great interest, particularly to study brain development. However, existing methods are time consuming and/or noisy. We propose a simple method to obtain semi-quantitative maps of myelin from routinely acquired T1-, T2- and proton density weighted images, by modelling the signal as a linear combination of non-exchanging tissue types: lipid, tissue water and free water. The method is calibrated empirically from the signal intensities in the data themselves. We show promising results in neonatal scans, showing the expected pattern of myelination in infants at term-equivalent age.

Kristen W. Yeom¹, Valentina Taviani¹, Andreas M. Loening¹, Michael Iv¹, and Shreyas S. Vasanawala^1
1Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States

Conventional single shot fast spin echo (SSFSE) and variable refocusing flip angle SSFSE (vrfSSFSE) were compared for fast sedation-free pediatric brain MRI (N=33). Two neuroradiologists independently and blindly evaluated SSFSE and vrfSSFSE images for motion, perceived resolution (sharpness), contrast and lesion conspicuity on a five-point scale. vrfSSFSE gave less motion and misregistration artefacts than conventional SSFSE, due to the shorter scan duration. As for the other image quality metrics, vrfSSFSE was found to be either comparable or superior to conventional SSFSE.

Jeffrey N Stout¹, M. Dylan Tisdall², Patrick McDaniel³, Borjan Gagoski⁴, Divya S Bolar^2,5, Patricia Ellen Grant⁴, and Elfar Adalsteinsson^1,3,6
1Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States, ²Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, MGH/Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States, ³Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States, ⁴Fetal-Neonatal Neuroimaging and Developmental Science Center, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA, United States, ⁵Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, United States, ⁶Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, Cambridge, MA, United States

When using the T₂-relaxation under spin tagging (TRUST) technique on non-compliant subjects, motion has an unknown effect on estimations of cerebral oxygenation that are derived from an empirical mapping between T₂ and blood oxygen saturation. Incorporating low resolution 3D-EPI volume navigators into the TRUST pulse sequence permits independent measurements of motion during scanning. We show that for static scans vNav modules have only small effects on resulting venous blood T₂ estimates, that poor exponential goodness of fit is not a sufficient indicator of motion, and that T₂ is biased upwards with increasing motion.

Lili He¹, Jinghua Wang², Mark Smith³, Zhong-Lin Lu², and Nehal A Parikh^1,4
1Center for Perinatal Research, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, United States, ²The Ohio State Univeristy, Columbus, OH, United States, ³Radiology, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, United States, ⁴Department of Pediatrics, The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus, OH, United States

Three-dimensional (3D) T₁-weighted sequences such as MP-RAGE are invaluable for evaluation of neonatal and infant brain injury/development. Sequence optimization for neonates has been historically challenging because neonatal brains exhibit reversed white matter–gray matter (WM-GM) contrast on T₁-weighted scans, and the contrast is much lower than that of adult brains. In this study, we show in preterm neonates that shortening the acquisition train length of the MP-RAGE sequence significantly improved SNR and CNR efficiencies. The proposed optimization methodology can be easily extended to other populations (e.g. term infants, adults and elders), and different organs, field strengths and MR sequences.

Zachary Hill¹, Mengyuan Liu¹, Sandra Juul², and Colin Studholme^3
1Bioengineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States, ²Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States, ³Pediatrics, Bioengineering, Radiology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States

Due to the difference in individual cases, larger multi-site studies of brain injury after premature birth may be needed, but dedicated neonatal imaging technology isn't always available. The use of older scanners with coils not specifically aimed at imaging neonatal brains introduces a severe intensity variation across the field of view, which can cause conventional image analysis pipelines to fail. A robust hybrid tissue segmentation pipeline was developed and shown to improve tissue segmentations of four test subjects with manual segmentations for reference. This enables automated and consistent analysis to better quantitatively study early human brain development.

Lei Feng^1,2, Hang Li^1,3, Kenichi Oishi⁴, Virendra Mishra⁵, Minhui Ouyang¹, Tina Jeon¹, Yun Peng³, Shuwei Liu², and Hao Huang^1,6
1Department of Radiology, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ²Research Center for Sectional and Imaging Anatomy, Shandong University School of Medicine, Jinan, China, People's Republic of, ³Department of Radiology, Beijing Children’s Hospital Affiliated to Capital Medical University, Beijing, China, People's Republic of, ⁴Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States, ⁵Advanced Imaging Research Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States, ⁶Department of Radiology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States

The large brain morphological differences of the preterm brain at 33 or 36 postmenstrual week (PMW) to that at 40 PMW makes it necessary to establish age-specific atlases for preterm brains. In this study, with diffusion MRI (dMRI) data acquisition of 82 preterm and term normal neonates, we aimed to establish a comprehensive digital atlas including labeling of gray and white matter for preterm brains at 33 and 36 PMW. We demonstrated these atlases and showed the differences of the major neural structures including ganglionic eminence and uncinate fasciculus by comparison to JHU-neonate-SS atlas for brains at around 40PMW.

Tetsu Niwa¹, Tetsuya Yoneda², Shuhei Shibukawa¹, Toshiki Kazama¹, Taro Takahara³, and Yutaka Imai^1
1Radiology, Tokai University School of Medicine, Isehara, Japan, ²Medical Physics in Advanced Biomedical Sciences, Kumamoto University, Kumamoto, Japan, ³Biomedical Engineering, Tokai University School of Engineering, Isehara, Japan

Recent reports suggest that phase shift in the white matter may be related to myelin content. We assessed the age-related phase changes of the white matter in small children (age range, 0?6 years) on phase difference enhanced imaging (PADRE). PADRE showed progression of the phase changes in the white matter along with age, particularly in the pyramidal tract and subcortical region in Rolandic are. Whereas, less phase changes were noted in the subcortical white matter in the temporal lobe. PADRE showed age-related white matter phase shift, suggesting progression of myelination and myelin content.

Marjolein Verly¹, Robin Gerrits¹, Lieven Lagae², Inge Zink¹, Stefan Sunaert³, and Nathalie Rommel^1
1Dept. Neurosciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, ²Dept. Pediatrics, UZ Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, ³Dept. Translational MRI, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

The main objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between the microstructural properties of language-related white matter (WM) tracts and hand preference in typically developing school-aged children. Our DTI tractography results provide evidence for a different structural connectivity pattern of the language connectome in left-handed children. Whereas right-handed children show a clear left-lateralized structural language network, our group of left-handed children seems to have a more bilateral organized language system. Those observed differences in WM microstructure and lateralization might reflect an interaction between handedness and the neural processing of language in children.

Elda Fischi-Gomez^1,2, Lana Vasung¹, Sebastien Urben^3,4, Cristina Borradori-Tolsa¹, François Lazeyras⁵, Jean-Philippe Thiran^2,6, and Petra Susan Hüppi^1
1Division of Development and Growth. Department of Pediatrics, University Hospital of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland, ²Signal Processing Laboratory 5, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland, ³Child Clinical Neuropsychology Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland, ⁴Research Unit, University Service of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital of Lausanne (CHUV), Lausanne, Switzerland, ⁵Department of Radiology and Medical Informatics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland, ⁶Department of Radiology, University Hospital Center (CHUV) and University of Lausanne (UNIL), Lausanne, Switzerland

Within preterm-born children, being born male and at a lower gestational age have both been associated with a heightened risk for developmental difficulties. However, in this population little is known about the combined effect and the influence of these risk factors on the structural networks subserving attention and executive. Using a diffusion-based brain connectome approach, in this work we analyze the effect of these two factors in the brain networks of school-age preterm born children and provide evidence of a gender-specific vulnerability in the executive attentional subnetwork.

Michael Kean^1,2, Lee Coleman^2,3, Simone Mandelstam³, Sonal Josan⁴, Benjamin Schmitt⁴, and Dingxin Wang^5,6
1Children MRI Centre, Royal Childrens Hospital, Parkville, Australia, ²Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Parkville, Australia, ³Royal Childrens Hospital, Parkville, Australia, ⁴Siemens Healthcare, Bayswater, Australia, ⁵Centre for Magnetic Resonance Research, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States, ⁶Siemens Medical Solutions, Malvern, PA, United States

The objective of our prospective study was to examine the clinical utility of Simultaneous Multi-Slice(SMS)  Accelerated TSE at 3T imaging paediatric patients who present with seizures.A randomly selected  cohort of patients were enrolled in the protocol covering a broad spectrum of clinical entities.

A direct comparison was undertaken with anatomically matched conventional TSE and SMS TSE acquisitions with matched in-plane and through plane resolution, echo train lengths and echo spacing.

Analysis of the data confirmed that although there were minimal variations in the quantitative measures recorded both sequences provided images of consistent image quality and diagnostic confidence with a significant scan time reduction attributed to the SMS TSE acquisition.

Karthik Prabhakaran¹, David Roalf¹, Mark Elliott¹, Simon Vandekar¹, Kosha Ruparel¹, Ryan Hopson¹, Efstathios D Gennatas¹, Jeffrey Valdez¹, Chad Jackson¹, Theodore Satterthwaite¹, Raquel Gur¹, and Ruben Gur^1
1University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States

R2*, the transverse relaxation rate was used to measure iron deposition in the globus pallidus of 815 youth and young adults between the ages of 8 and 22. Significant iron deposition occurs in the globus pallidus between the ages of 8 and 22 in accordance with previously described models of iron deposition in the brain throughout the lifespan. Among adolescents (age 12-16) females had lower iron deposition in the globus pallidus (p < 0.001) as compared to males, this may be related to adolescent females being especially susceptible to dietary iron deficiency because of poor dietary intake in conjunction with high iron requirements related to rapid growth and menstrual blood loss. 

Weiwei Men¹, Tianbing Song², Shuang Xia³, Yaoyu Zhang¹, Jing Che⁴, and Jia-Hong Gao^1
1Center for MRI Research, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Beijing, China, People's Republic of, ²Beijing cancer hospital, Beijing, China, People's Republic of, ³Tianjing First Central Hospital, Tianjing, China, People's Republic of, ⁴Aerospace Central Hospital, Beijing, China, People's Republic of

Congenital sensorineural hearing loss (CSHL) is a common disease in newborns, which can affect the development of corpus callosum (CC). In this study, a novel method of CC thickness analysis was employed to compare the CC difference between deaf and control groups. The results indicate that after 24 months deaf group has thinner CC thickness in the anterior splenium of CC compared to control group, which means the development of deaf anterior splenium is slowed down. Our study suggests that 12~24 month old is the best time period for CSHL treatment and intervention.

Marcin Jankiewicz¹, Paul A. Taylor^1,2,3, Martha Holmes¹, Mark F. Cotton⁴, Barbara Laughton⁴, Andre J.W. van der Kouwe⁵, and Ernesta M. Meintjes^1
1MRC/UCT Medical Imaging Research Unit, Department of Human Biology, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa, ²Scientific and Statistical Computing Core, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, United States, ³African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Muizenberg, South Africa, ⁴Children’s Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Unit, Department of Pediatrics and Child Health, Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa, ⁵Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States

In this work we examine WM alterations in HIV infected children at age 7 years and compare those who initiated ART before and after 12 weeks of age.

Frances C Robertson¹, Martha J Holmes¹, Emmanuel C Nwosu¹, Francesca Little², Mark F Cotton³, Els Dobbels³, Andre JW van der Kouwe^4,5, Barbara Laughton³, and Ernesta M Meintjes^1
1Department of Human Biology, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa, ²Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa, ³Department of Paediatrics & Child Health, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa, ⁴A.A. Martinos Centre for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States, ⁵Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States

HIV is associated with structural deficits in the basal ganglia (BG). Volumes from structural MRI may relate to metabolic changes measurable with magnetic resonance spectroscopy. We investigated the relationship between BG NAA and Glutamate/Glutamine and caudate, putamen, nucleus accumbens and subcortical gray matter (GM) volumes in 7-year old HIV-infected children on antiretroviral therapy and uninfected controls. Higher NAA was associated with smaller accumbens and left putamen in all children. Higher Glutamate/Glutamine was associated with greater subcortical GM in controls, but not HIV-infected children. Relationships between brain metabolites and volumes add to the description of effects of HIV/ART on the BG.

Nicolaas AJ Puts^1,2, Ericka L Wodka^3,4, Ashley D Harris^1,2,5,6, Deana Crocetti⁷, Mark Tommerdahl⁸, Richard AE Edden^1,2, and Stewart H Mostofsky^3,7,9
1Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States, ²F.M. Kirby Center for Functional Brain Imaging, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, United States,³Center for Autism and Related Disorders, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, United States, ⁴Psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States, ⁵Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada, ⁶Radiology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada, ⁷Laboratory for Neurocognitive and Imaging Research, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, United States, ⁸Biomedical Engineering, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States, ⁹Neurology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States

Children with Autism often show difficulties processing sensory stimuli, but the underpinnings are poorly understood. Multiple lines of evidence suggest that GABA, the main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain, plays a role in the pathophysiology of ASD. Here we show reduced GABA levels in children with ASD, which is associated with abnormal performance on vibrotactile tasks related to inhibition. We show that alterations in GABA can contribute to alterations in sensory processing in ASD.

Yang Zheng¹, Xiaoming WANG¹, Xuna Zhao², and Jinyuan Zhou^3
1Department of Radiology, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, China, People's Republic of, ²Philips Healthcare, Beijing, China, Beijing, China, People's Republic of, ³Division of MR Research, Department of Radiology, Johns Hopkins University, Maryland, USA, Baltimore, MD, United States

Yang Zheng M.D. Department of Radiology, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, No. 36, Sanhao Street, Heping District, Shenyang 110004,PR China E-mail address: jingshenbing0702@gmail.com Tel.: +86 13889830846

Noriko Aida^1,2, Jun Shibasaki³, Moyoko Tomiyasu^1,2, Yuri Nishi^1,4, Naho Morisaki⁴, Takeo Fujiwara⁴, Katsuaki Toyoshima³, and Takayuki Obata^2
1Radiology, Kanagawa Children's Medical Center, Yokohama, Japan, ²Research Center for Charged Particle Therapy, National Institute of Radiological Sciences, Chiba, Japan, ³Neonatology, Kanagawa Children's Medical Center, Yokohama, Japan, ⁴Social Medicine, National Research Institute for Child Health and Development, Tokyo, Japan

Absolute metabolite concentrations of N-acethylaspartate (NAA), Choline(Cho) and Creatine(Cr) in the deep gray matter of 44 near term neonates with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE), measured using PRESS method short echo 1H-MRS within 2 weeks after birth, showed excellent prognostic values (AUC; NAA: 0.98, Cho: 0.96, Cr: 0.99) with the adverse outcomes having significantly lower measurements compared to those with favorable outcomes, while Lactate was less efficient (AUC 0.74). Moreover NAA and Cr concentrations measured at 24-96 hours revealed perfect prognostic values (AUC 1.00). Early measurement of absolute Cr and NAA concentrations can be excellent biomarkers of infants suffered with neonatal HIE.

Muriel M.K. Bruchhage¹, Ali Amad¹, Stephen B. Draper², Jade Seidman¹, Flavio Dell'Acqua³, Luis Lacerda³, Pedro Luque Laguna³, Ruth G. Lowry⁴, Andrew Robertson⁵, Marcus S. Smith⁴, and Steven C.R. Williams^1
1Department of Neuroimaging, King's College London, The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, London, United Kingdom, ²School of Sport and Exercise, University of Gloucestershire, Chichester, United Kingdom, ³NatBrainLab, Department of Neuroimaging, King's College London, The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, London, United Kingdom, ⁴Department of Sport and Exercise, University of Chichester, Chichester, United Kingdom, ⁵Centre for Digital Music, School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University, London, United Kingdom

Cerebellar networks show long-term plasticity and motor training has been shown to change cerebellar microstructure and cortical thickness. We used a combination of neuroimaging measures to visualise plastic changes in drumming - a demanding multilimb training method: cerebellar lobular volume and shape analysis, cortical thickness and diffusion tensor imaging. Drum training reorganises and reshapes the posterior cerebellum, expanding to connected parietal and prefrontal cortical structures through the inferior cerebellar white matter pathway. Thus, it may offer a novel method for cerebellar and cortical plasticity, relevant as an intervention method for psychiatric disorders connected to cerebellar dysfunction, including autism spectrum disorder.

Puneet Bagga¹, Rachelle Crescenzi¹, Guruprasad Krishnamoorthy¹, Ravi Prakash Reddy Nanga¹, Damodara Reddy¹, Sidyarth Garimall¹, Kevin D'Aquilla¹, Joel Greenberg², John A Detre², Hari Hariharan¹, and Ravinder Reddy^1
1Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ²Department of Neurology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States

MPTP (1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine) causes selective dopaminergic death in the substantia nigra and striatum leading to dopamine loss in the basal ganglia. Here, we apply glutamate chemical exchange saturation transfer (GluCEST), a novel non-invasive MRI technique, to investigate glutamate changes in MPTP mouse model. The data suggests elevation in GluCEST contrast in striatum and motor cortex of MPTP treated mice. Immunostaining experiments showed elevation of glial markers in the striatum, which correlates with the GluCEST contrast. Also, motor function was found to be negatively correlated with GluCEST.

Arvin Arani¹, Paul Min¹, Nikoo Fattahi¹, Nicholas M Wetjen¹, Clifford Jack¹, Kendall H Lee¹, Richard L Ehman¹, and John Huston III^1
1Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, United States

Hydrocephalus is a common medical condition that results from obstruction to the flow of cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) or resorption of CSF. No non-invasive method offers direct measurement of intracranial pressure (ICP). Magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) is capable of non-invasively measuring brain tissue stiffness in-vivo, and may act as a surrogate to ICP. The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of ICP on brain stiffness using MRE in a porcine model. This study shows that MRE brain stiffness changes directly correspond to changes in ICP, motivating future investigation into shunt-therapy monitoring in a patient population.

Blanca Lizarbe¹, Joao M. N. Duarte¹, Ana Francisca Soares¹, and Rolf Gruetter^1,2,3
1Laboratory for Functional and Metabolic Imaging (LIFMET), Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland, ²Department of Radiology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland,³Department of Radiology, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

Obesity is a complex disorder that leads to reduced life expectancy, with increased risk of heart disease, type-2 diabetes, high blood pressure and some type of cancers.  To understand the mechanisms of obesity development, several animal models, such as high fat diet administered rodents, are being studied. We designed a longitudinal study to investigate the short and long term effects of high caloric diet intake in two populations of mice -high fat or regular fed- during 6 months, evaluating in vivo the changes in the neurochemical profile of the hypothalamus by ¹H MRS.

Arsene Longin Ella¹, José Delgadillo¹, Philippe Chemineau¹, and Matthieu Keller^1
1Laboratory of Reproductive Physiology and Behavior, INRA - Centre Val de Loire, Nouzilly, France

The sheep model was first used in the field of reproductive physiology in agronomy to improve milk and meat production, and then was brought into fundamental and preclinical neurosciences. Since a decade, MR studies performed on this model are increasingly reported. To play an important role in MR translational neuroscientific research, a brain template and an atlas are therefore necessary. Simultaneously, two MR templates were proposed in 2015. To complete the set of MR tools, we computed a high resolution 3D in-vivo sheep brain atlas including: i) gyri and sulci   ii) inner structures iii) main external structures.

Xin Hong¹, Marta Garcia-Miralles², Ling Yun Yeow¹, Xuan Vinh To¹, Benjamin Chaik Meng Yeo¹, Fiftarina Puspitasari¹, Katrianne Bethia Koh², Liang Juin Tan², Mahmoud Abdul Pouladi^2,3, and Kai-Hsiang Chuang^1
1Singapore Bioimaging Consortium, Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore, Singapore, ²Translational Laboratory in Genetic Medicine, Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore, Singapore, ³Department of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

T2 weighted structural and diffusion MRI together with behavioral tests were conducted to evaluate the effects of memantine treatment in YAC128 mouse model of Huntington disease. In low-dose (2 mg/kg)-treated YAC128 mice, cognitive functions improved, and increased fractional anisotropy was found in major fiber tracts including the corpus callosum, anterior commissure, and internal capsule. No significant gray matter volume change was detected in treatment groups, though the relative caudate putamen volume showed increasing trend with dose. Our results suggest that low dose memantine treatment had protective effects on white matter in YAC128 mice.

Lauriane Jugé ^1,2, Alice C. Pong¹, Andre Bongers³, Ralph Sinkus⁴, Lynne E. Bilston^1,5, and Shaokoon Cheng^6
1Neuroscience Research Australia, Randwick, NSW, Australia, ²School of Medical Sciences, University of New South Wales, Kensington, NSW, Australia, ³Biological Resources Imaging Laboratory, University of New South Wales, Kensington, NSW, Australia, ⁴BHF Centre of Excellence, Division of Imaging Sciences and Biomedical Engineering, King's College London, London, United Kingdom, ⁵Prince of Wales Clinical School, University of New South Wales, Kensington, NSW, Australia, ⁶Department of Engineering, Faculty of Science, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, Australia

Hydrocephalus is characterised by enlarged ventricles resulting in compression of surrounding tissues. Conventional imaging techniques depict ventricle size accurately. However, they are limited to detect changes in brain microstructure. The aim of this work was to quantify changes in brain mechanical and diffusion properties during the development of hydrocephalus in rats, using MR Elastography and Diffusion Tensor Imaging. Results showed that both techniques have the potential to be complementary imaging tools for tracking the effects of hydrocephalus on the tissue microstructure and provided new insights on how the brain changes during the course of the disease.

Ian F Harrison¹, Asif Machhada¹, Niall Colgan¹, Ozama Ismail¹, James M O'Callaghan¹, Holly E Holmes¹, Jack A Wells¹, Alexander V Gourine², Tracey K Murray³, Zeshan Ahmed³, Ross A Johnson⁴, Emily C Collins⁴, Michael J O'Neill³, and Mark F Lythgoe^1
1Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging, University College London, London, United Kingdom, ²Department of Neuroscience, Physiology & Pharmacology, University College London, London, United Kingdom, ³Eli Lilly and Company, Windlesham, United Kingdom, ⁴Eli Lilly and Company, Indianapolis, IN, United States

The ‘glymphatic’ clearance system is a brain-wide pathway for removal of waste solutes from the brain. It has recently been implicated in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), due to discovery that both amyloid and tau, accumulations of which lead to AD development, can be cleared from the brain via this pathway. We therefore hypothesise that an impairment of ‘glymphatic’ clearance occurs in the initial stages of disease development, leading to accumulation of amyloid and tau in the brain. Here, we determine whether this is the case, by using dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI to quantify glymphatic clearance in the brain of a mouse model of AD. 

Roger Murayi¹, Martin Piazza¹, Jeeva Munasinghe¹, Nancy Edwards¹, Stuart Walbridge¹, Marsha Merrill¹, and Prashant Chittiboina^1
1Surgical Neurology Branch/NINDS, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, United States

The molecular mechanisms mediating the formation of peritumoral vasogenic brain edema (VBE) and its abrogation from glucocorticoid treatment is poorly understood.  In order to study the molecular underpinnings and temporal evolution of these processes we successfully developed a murine model of VBE confirmed by high field MRI and histopathologic studies.  Furthermore, we demonstrate a differential effect of systemic glucocorticoids on blood-brain-barrier breakdown and edema formation.  This in-vivo model will allow for further investigation into the molecular mechanisms of VBE formation and potentially provide additional targets for its treatment.

Xuxia Wang¹, Ronghui Li¹, and Hao Lei^1
1National Center of Magnetic Resonance in Wuhan, State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China, People's Republic of

Permanent bilateral common carotid arteries occlusion (2VO) rat model can induce pathological changes in brain, do these changes induce MRI visible structural changes? The enriched environment, an useful paradigm of increasing brain structural plasticity, may have a structural effect on 2VO rat brain. In this study the structural changes of 2VO rat brain with and without enriched environment (EE) were studied by in vivo MRI. Our results showed that sensorimotor cortex, dorsolateral striatum, cingulate cortex and dentate gyrus represented significant atrophy after 2VO and EE effectively protected against the gray matter atrophy.

Shiyu Tang^1,2, Jaylyn Waddell³, Mary C. Mckenna³, Su Xu^1,2, Prashant Raghavan¹, and Gullapalli P. Rao^1,2
1Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States, ²Core for Translational Research in Imaging, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States, ³Department of Pediatrics, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States

Cerebral hypoxia ischemia (HI) is a primary cause of perinatal brain injury. Infants surviving HI face risk of abnormal neurodevelopment, motor and intellectual disability. Acetyl-L-carnitine (ALCAR) is neuroprotective while its efficacy in perinatal HI treatment has yet to be shown. To test the neuroprotective efficacy of ALCAR and potential sex differences, we performed in vivo MRI and behavioral tests in a rat model of neonatal HI. Results revealed that ALCAR is neuroprotective in both morphological and behavioral outcomes. Males exhibit more consistent HI-induced functional impairments. ALCAR was effective in ameliorating functional impairments in both males and females.

Karthikeyan Subramanian¹, David Utriainen¹, Ewart Mark Kaacke¹, Charbel Habib¹, John Beaver², and Rajasimhan Rajagovindan^2
1Magnetic Resonance Innovations Inc., Detroit, MI, United States, ²Abbvie, North Chicago, IL, United States

This study uses cynomologus macaques, a non-human primate, as an animal model for cerebral microbleeds (CMBs).  The intent is to leverage histological slices stained for iron detection against an MRI protocol with susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI) systematically collected over the course of several weeks.   The radiologic-neuropathologic assessment of the CMBs was done separately on SWI, T2WI, T2*, SWI phase, and susceptibility weighted imaging and mapping (SWIM).  SWIM was also used to quantify the iron content in the basal ganglia structures, such as the caudate nucleus.  A quantified increase in CMBs and iron content was observed.

Sunil Koundal^1,2, Sonia Gandhi¹, Tanzeer Kaur², and Subash Khushu^1
1NMR Research Centre, Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS), Delhi, India, ²Department of Biophysics, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India

High altitude hypoxia poses a serious threat to human health. In the present study, rat were exposed to acute simulated high altitude exposure which resulted in apparent diffusion coefficient changes in brain regions including corpus callosum and hippocampus. The study suggested the occurrence of vasogenic edema in corpus callosum and delayed cytotoxic edema in hippocampus region of brain due to acute high altitude exposure. This study has potential in setting new insights to address high altitude related health problems effectively.

Mathieu David Santin^1,2, Thomas Samoyeau², Romain Valabrègue^1,2, Elodie Laffrat², Chantal François², and Stéphane Hunot^2
1Centre de NeuroImagerie de Recherche - CENIR, Paris, France, ²Inserm U 1127, CNRS UMR 7225, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06 UMR S 1127, Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle épinière, ICM, Paris, France

This work present tractography of an ex vivo brain of a primate model. Parkinson's disease ralated tracts were clearly identified and can serve as biomarkers in our primate model.

Chen Yanzi¹, Dai Zhuozhi¹, Shen Zhiwei¹, Chen Miaomiao¹, Ma Xilun¹, and Wu Renhua^1
12nd Affilicated Hospital, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, China, People's Republic of

Glutamate (Glu) plays a crucial role in the early stage of neuroinflammation, which requires early diagnosis and treatment. This study aimed to explore Glu concentration changes in rats brain abscess model and patients with neuroinflammation using chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) MRI.

Bauke Kogelman¹, Artem Khmelinskii^2,3, Maaike van Putten⁴, and Louise van der Weerd^1,4
1Department of Radiology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, Netherlands, ²Division of Image Processing, Dept. of Radiology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, Netherlands, ³Percuros B.V., Enschede, Netherlands, ⁴Department of Human Genetics, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, Netherlands

Besides muscle, Duchenne muscular dystrophy also affects the brain, resulting in memory and behavior problems. The consequences of dystrophinopathy on gross macroscopic alterations in the mouse brain are unclear. We used a number of mouse models that express either 0%(mdx), 100%(Bl10-WT) or a low amount of dystrophin(mdx-Xist?hs). We showed that while whole brain volume does not significantly differ between mdx and Bl10-WT mice, there are differences in volumes of individual brain substructures. These results are in line with human data, where brain volume was found to be reduced only in patients lacking both full-length dystrophin and the shorter isoform Dp140.

Piotr Majka¹, Bartosz Kossowski², Jaroslaw Orzel², Piotr Bogorodzki², Zuzanna Setkowicz³, and Stefan P. Gazdzinski^4
1Nencki Institute for Experimenal Biology, Warsaw, Poland, ²Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland, ³Neuroanatomy, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland, ⁴CNS Lab, Military Institute for Aviation Medicine, Warsaw, Poland

Our study of long-term use of high fat diet inducing mild ketonemia in Wistar rats showed improvements in learning and memory, as well as larger hippocampi and higher concentrations of tNAA (marker of neuronal viability), tCho (involved in metabolite turnover), and tCr (involved in cell energetics). Here, we applied voxel based morphometry (VBM) for structural images and used TARQUIN for¹H MRS data obtained at 7T. Results of VBM and TARQUIN provided results consistent with previous analyses. However, the use of a literature-based template lead to tissue contractions not detectable with study specific template.

Ferdinand Schweser^1,2, Claire M Modica^1,3, Nicola Bertolino¹, Paul Polak¹, Marilena Preda^1,2, and Robert Zivadinov^1,2
1Buffalo Neuroimaging Analysis Center, Department of Neurology, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, United States, ²MRI Molecular and Translational Research Center, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, United States, ³Neuroscience Program, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, United States

The technique of MR microscopy (μMRI) has evolved into an important tool for morphologic phenotyping and computational neuroanatomy research. However, due to the inherent challenges of mouse imaging, μMRI of mouse brain has so far mostly been limited to post mortem tissue, often relying on perfusion with a mixture of saline and a T1-shortening constant agent, which increases the MRI sampling efficiency.

In this work, we demonstrate the feasibility of in vivo μMRI of mouse brain at 9.4 Tesla with a resolution of 50μm using a cryogenic brain coil and an optimized imaging sequence.

Chien-Lin Yeh^1,2, Jennifer McGlothan Dziedzic³, Tomas R. Guilarte³, and Ulrike Dydak^2,4
1School of Health Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, United States, ²Radiology and Imaging Sciences, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, United States, ³Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York, NY, United States, ⁴School of Health Sciences, Purdue University, West lafayette, IN, United States

High exposure to manganese (Mn) causes motor impairments resembling Parkinson’s disease. Using R1 mapping we investigated the dynamics of brain Mn accumulation during and after chronic manganese exposure in nonhuman primates. The R1 in whole brain displayed a significant increase after 27-41 wks of exposure. The visual cortex was found to have continuous Mn accumulation over exposure duration, while R1 of substantia nigra was decrease at 66-81 wks. Some select brain areas still show hyperintensities ten months after cessation of exposure. Understanding the regional uptake and retention may help elucidating the relation of Mn exposure to neurological symptoms.

Yijen Wu¹, Patrice S Pearce², Amedeo Rapuano³, Kevin Kelly², Nihal de Lanerolle³, and Jullie W Pan^4
1Developmental Biology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States, ²Pittsburgh, PA, United States, ³New Haven, CT, United States, ⁴University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

MR spectroscopy in a variable rat status epilepticus (kainate induced) model of epilepsy is shown to segregate between mildly and severely injured animals. As measured 3days after status epilepticus, animals with NAA/tCr values of less than 1.0 (kainate more injured, KMI) segregated with greater increases in Inositol/tCr, Glutamine/tCr and Lac/tCr, with these changes predicting the metabolic measured 3weeks after status. Although Inositol/tCr was elevated in the kainate less injured KLI group, the KLI group showed milder changes at 3days and at 3weeks. This metabolic classification was also sustained into histologic studies.

Yohan van de Looij^1,2, Aline Rideau Batista Novais³, Olivier Baud³, Petra S Hüppi¹, and Stéphane V Sizonenko^1
1Division of Child Growth & Development, Department of Pediatrics, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland, ²Laboratory for Functional and Metabolic Imaging, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland, ³Inserm U1141 – DHU PROTECT, Robert Debré Hospital, Paris, France

Experimental studies of intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) in the rat, induced by protein or caloric restriction, have shown to have extensive effects on brain development including white and grey matter structural changes [1]. The aim of this work was to establish offspring cerebral structural changes following low protein diet in rats during gestation by using DTI and NODDI. LPD microstructural consequences on pup rats at P10/P21 were characterized. At P10, structural changes were mainly found in the white matter whereas at P21 cortical structure was abnormally developed. DTI and NODDI give accurate probing of the cerebral impairment following IUGR.

Veronika Rackayova¹, Olivier Braissant², Corina Berset³, Jocelyn Grosse⁴, Daniela Capobianco⁵, Paola Mastromarino⁵, Valérie A. McLin⁶, and Cristina Cudalbu^3
1Laboratory of Functional and Metabolic Imaging, Center for Biomedical Imaging, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland, Lausanne, Switzerland, ²Service of Biomedicine, University Hospital of Lausanne, Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland, Lausanne, Switzerland, ³Center for Biomedical Imaging, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland, Lausanne, Switzerland, ⁴Laboratory of behavioral genetics, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland, Lausanne, Switzerland, ⁵Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Public Health and Infectious diseases, Section of Microbiology, Rome, Italy, Rome, Italy, ⁶Swiss Center for Liver Disease in Children, Department of Pediatrics, University Hospitals Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland, Geneva, Switzerland

We investigated potential therapeutic effect of probiotic treatment with anti-inflammatory proprieties (VSL#3) in a rat model of Chronic Liver Disease induced Hepatic Encephalopathy (HE). ¹H MRS at 9.4T revealed significantly lower increase of glutamine (typical sign of HE) and better osmoregulation in the hippocampus together with overall better performance in behavioural tests in treated animals. These results are very promising.

Sanjeev Chawla¹, Manoj Kumar^1,2, Sea-Young Yoon³, Harish Poptani⁴, and John H Wolfe^3
1Radiology, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ²Center for Perinatal Research, The Research Institute, and Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, United States, ³Abramson Research Center, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ⁴Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom

To evaluate the potential of in vivo proton MR spectroscopy (¹H MRS) in monitoring treatment response to adeno-associated viral (AAV) gene therapy to the cisterna-magna in a cat model of alpha-mannosidosis. Normal (n=3), untreated (n=3) and AAV-treated (n=3) cats underwent multivoxel ¹H MRS. Significant elevations in resonances due to mannose-rich oligosaccharides (OG) and N-acetylated sugars (Glc-NAc) were observed in brain of untreated cats compared to normal controls. AAV treated cats demonstrated a decrease (normalization) in the OG and Glc-NAc resonances, which were not significantly different from untreated cats indicating some degree of positive response to this therapy.

Su Xu^1,2, Shiyu Tang^1,2, Roger J Mullins^1,2, Edna FR Pereira³, Edson X Albuquerque³, and Rao P Gullapalli^1,2
1Radiology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States, ²Core for Translational Research in Imaging @ Maryland, Baltimore, MD, United States, ³Department of Epidemiology & Public Health, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States

To test the hypothesis that prenatal exposure of guinea pigs to malathion, one of the few organophosphate insecticides that is still in residential use in the USA, disrupts axonal integrity. After the sub-acute maternal exposure to malathion, male offspring of exposed mothers had significantly decreased diffusion metrics and anisotropy in the corpus callosum. The findings reveal the lasting effect of prenatal exposure to malathion and the danger of mother to child transmission of malathion in the environment.

Poonam Rana¹, Mamta Arya Gupta¹, Seenu Haridas², Kailash Manda², B S Hemanth Kumar¹, and Subash Khushu^1
1NMR Research Centre, INMAS, Delhi, India, ²Division of Radiation Biosciences, INMAS, Delhi, India

Nuclear accidents or terrorist activities may lead to moderate dose whole body radiation exposure to a mass population. Whole body radiation exposure may influence brain function but it has not been extensively studied. Present study was conducted on mice to look for whole body radiation induced delayed behavioural, metabolic and microstructural changes. The results illustrated changes in recognition memory, MRS and MD values till 8 months post-irradiation. At later time points (10 and 12 months post-irradiation), no profound effect of radiation exposure was observed which indicates that 5Gy whole body radiation dose exposure does not have late delayed radiation injury.