Zhiwei Huang¹, Bernard Cuenoud², Mickael Hartweg³, Daniel Wenz¹, and Lijing Xin^1
1Center for Biomedical Imaging, EPFL, Ecublens, Switzerland, ²Translation Research, Nestlé Health Science, Lausanne, Switzerland, ³Clinical Research Unit, Nestlé Research and Development, Lausanne, Switzerland

Our understanding of circadian rhythm has expanded to provide molecular insights into physiology and disease since the discovery of circadian clock.Pre-clinical experiments have shown that circadian rhythm is linked with the Nicotinamid Adenine Dinucleotide (NAD) levels and the redox ratio. However, clinical data is still lacking. In this study, we aim to study the effect of circadian rhythm on NAD levels in the human brain. By measuring the NAD levels in the occipital lobe with 31P-MRS, preliminary interim results suggest a negative correlation trend between cortisol level and total NAD level.

Oliver Kraff¹, Cornelius Deuschl², Richard Dodel³, Janis Evers^3,4, Anika Nietert^1,5, Annika Verheyen^1,6, and Harald H Quick^1,7
1Erwin L. Hahn Institute for MRI, University Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany, ²Dept. of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology and Neuroradiology, University Hospital Essen, University Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany, ³Chair of Geriatric Medicine, University Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany, ⁴Institute for Health Services Research and Clinical Epidemiology, Philipps University Marburg, Marburg, Germany, ⁵Westphalian University of Applied Sciences, Gelsenkirchen, Germany, ⁶University of Applied Sciences Ruhr West, Mülheim, Germany, ⁷High-Field and Hybrid MR Imaging, University Hospital Essen, University Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany

American football players were examined before and after a season of the German Football League. High resolution quantitative MRI at 7T for evaluations of volumetric changes and alterations in T1 relaxation times of various brain regions was performed. Age- and gender-matched subjects with no history of contact and collision sports served as a control group. In addition, structural susceptibility weighted imaging was compared between 3T and 7T. Loss of gray matter volume and an overall increase in T1 relaxation times were observed in players between both scans. SWI was superior in detecting cerebral microbleeds at 7T compared to 3T.

Pedro Juan Rodriguez Rivera¹, Amal Isaiah ^1,2,3, Thomas Ernst^1,4, Christine Cloak¹, Huajun Liang¹, and Linda Chang^1,4,5
1Department of Diagnostic Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States, ²Department of Otorhinolaryngology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States, ³Department of Pediatrics, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States, ⁴Department of Neurology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States, ⁵Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States

Prenatal tobacco exposure (PTE) can affect the offspring cognitive and brain development outcomes. Our study evaluated children who had PTE in the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) study and found poorer overall cognitive scores, especially working memory scores, lower cortical surface areas and subcortical volumes, with smaller surface areas in the posterior cingulate (PCC) and entorhinal cortices, the lingual and inferior parietal gyri, and abnormally smaller volumes in the thalamus and nucleus accumbens. Furthermore, we found that only PTE-girls had significantly smaller surface areas in the postcentral gyrus, while only PTE-boys had smaller volumes in the posterior corpus callosum.

Paolo Bosco¹, Laura Biagi¹, Simona Fiori¹, Clara Bombonato¹, Michela Tosetti¹, and Anna Chilosi^1
1IRCCS Stella Maris Foundation, Pisa, Italy

Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is a pediatric speech sound disorder in which precision and consistency of speech movements are impaired in absence of neuromuscular and structural deficit. The cause of CAS remains poorly understood and few neuroimaging studies still exist in children with CAS. In this case-control study we compared both at ROI and voxel level the cerebral gray matter of CAS and healthy controls subjects. The statistical analyses show that gray matter in CAS children is increased in areas of motor circuitries subserving speech and in areas involving sensorimotor learning.

Vishaal Sumra^1,2,3 and Sofia Chavez^1,2,4
1Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, ²Brain Health Imaging Centre, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, ON, Canada, ³Tanz Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, ⁴Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Changes in cerebral blood flow (CBF) have the ability to confound structural and quantitative MRI studies. Caffeine is widely consumed and leads to strong decreases in CBF. Moderate caffeine users were scanned before and after caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee over two separate days. Percentage change in CBF maps, quantitative T1 maps, and estimates of grey matter volume (GMV) were assessed for the caffeinated coffee and decaffeinated coffee days. Robust decreases in CBF were observed, along with changes in T1 maps and estimates of GMV. Caffeine intake should be considered in studies relying on structural and quantitative MRI measures.

Yueyuan Luo¹, Jun Yang², Chengde Liao², and Zhongping Zhang^3
1Department of Radiology., The Third Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Yunnan Cancer Hospital, Kunming, China, ²Department of Radiology, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Yunnan Cancer Hospital, Kunming, China, ³Philips Healthcare China, Guangzhou, China

Heroin plays role in heroin-induced cognitive dysfunction is unclear. We used manganese-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging for to evaluate the effect of heroin on axon transport in the body.

Benjamin T Newman¹ and T. Jason Druzgal^1
1Department of Radiology & Medical Imaging, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, United States

Understanding how the brain develops, matures, ages, and declines is one of the fundamental questions facing neuroscience^1–3. Recent advances in diffusion microstructure analysis have allowed for detailed descriptions of neuronal change. However, it is essential that findings from these studies are appropriately contextualized to general age-related changes in the brain^4,5. This study uses 3-tissue constrained spherical deconvolution (3T-CSD) to examine the relationship between brain diffusion microstructure and chronological age in a number of gross anatomical structures, subcortical gray matter, and cortex while additionally evaluating lateral differences in microstructural measurements. The results should serve as a benchmark for diffusion microstructure studies.

Priyanka M Nadar^1,2, Alexandru V Avram^3,4, Luca Marinelli⁵, and Peter J Basser^3
1Clinical Center, NIH, Bethesda, MD, United States, ²Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ³NICHD, NIH, Bethesda, MD, United States, ⁴Henry M Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Bethesda, MD, United States, ⁵Global Research, General Electric, Niskayuna, NY, United States

Mean Apparent Propagator (MAP) MRI, an expansion of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), explicitly measures the distribution of net 3D displacements of diffusing water molecules, providing better delineation of crossing white matter fiber tracts. This characteristic may be useful in characterizing unseen microstructural damage in patients with mild traumatic brain injuries whose clinical imaging scans are otherwise normal. An image processing pipeline for using mean apparent propagator (MAP) MRI to analyze diffusion weighted images in mTBI patients has been validated in healthy controls and shown to generate reliable data for patient brain scans.

Jayashree Chandrasekaran¹, Young Woo Park¹, Emilien Petit², Sophie Tezenas du Montcel², Michal Povazan³, Guita Banan⁴, Romain Valabregue², Philipp Ehses⁵, Jennifer Faber⁵, James M. Joers¹, Pierrick Coupé⁶, Jose Vincente Manjón Herrera⁷, Chiadi U. Onyike³, Peter B. Barker³, Jeremy D. Schmahman⁸, Eva Maria Ratai⁸, S.H Subramony⁴, Thomas H. Mareci⁴, Khalaf O. Bushara⁹, Henry Paulson¹⁰, Alexandra Durr², Thomas Klockgether⁵, Tetsuo Ashizawa¹¹, Christophe Lenglet¹, and Gulin Oz^1
1Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States, ²Sorbonne University, Paris, France, ³Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States, ⁴University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, United States, ⁵German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Bonn, Germany, ⁶University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France, ⁷Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Valencia, Spain, ⁸Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States, ⁹University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States, ¹⁰University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States, ¹¹The Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX, United States

Spinocerebellar ataxias are rare inherited neurodegenerative diseases that cause degeneration in the cerebellum and brainstem. The multi-site READISCA clinical trial readiness study aims to validate MR biomarkers at early stages of SCA1 and SCA3. SCA gene carriers (including individuals at pre-ataxic and ataxic stage) and matched controls (total N=107) were scanned at 3T to obtain structural and diffusion MRI and MR spectroscopy. Medulla, pons, and cerebellar peduncles were the earliest sites of involvement in both SCAs. Neurochemical and microstructural abnormalities were detected with very high sensitivity (AUC>0.9 in ROC analyses) prior to ataxia onset.