Biomedical subjects

D C Alsop

Publications and source records attributed to D C Alsop.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

PubMed1998

Multisection cerebral blood flow MR imaging with continuous arterial spin labeling.

A method was evaluated to control for off-resonance saturation in noninvasive magnetic resonance imaging with continuous arterial spin labeling of cerebral blood flow. In phantoms and humans, application of amplitude-modulated radio-frequency irradiation during the control image corrected for saturation across the whole brain and made possible cerebral blood flow imaging in multiple sections at arbitrary angles to the labeling plane.

Adult↗

PubMed1998

Noninvasive MRI evaluation of cerebral blood flow in cerebrovascular disease.

Previous studies have demonstrated that cerebral blood flow (CBF) can be assessed noninvasively by MRI using magnetic labeling of arterial water as a diffusible flow tracer. The purpose of this study was to assess the quality of CBF images obtained from patients with cerebrovascular disease using this method, and to begin to evaluate the potential clinical role for this technique. We recruited 14 patients who presented with stroke, TIA, or severe carotid stenosis and were likely to have altered CBF based on clinical assessment. In many of these patients, CBF imaging disclosed both focal and hemispheric hypoperfusion, either in vascular territories or in watershed regions. In 11 patients with significant proximal arterial stenosis, hemispheric CBF abnormalities localized to the side of most significant stenosis for the anterior circulation distribution. In several patients watershed hypoperfusion was even more pronounced. Our results suggest that good-quality MR CBF images can be obtained reliably from patients with cerebrovascular disease. CBF imaging can be combined with standard structural imaging within a single MRI examination, and provides clinically meaningful information. The capability of measuring CBF easily provides a potentially useful tool for clinical assessment and further investigation of stroke pathophysiology.

Adult↗

PubMed1998

Functional MRI lateralization of memory in temporal lobe epilepsy.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the feasibility of using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to detect asymmetries in the lateralization of memory activation in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). BACKGROUND: Assessment of mesial temporal lobe function is a critical aspect of the preoperative evaluation for epilepsy surgery, both for predicting postoperative memory deficits and for seizure lateralization. fMRI offers several potential advantages over the current gold standard, intracarotid amobarbital testing (IAT). fMRI has already been successfully applied to language lateralization in TLE. METHODS: fMRI was carried out in eight normal subjects and 10 consecutively recruited patients with TLE undergoing preoperative evaluation for epilepsy surgery. A complex visual scene encoding task known to activate mesial temporal structures was used during fMRI. Asymmetry ratios for mesial temporal activation were calculated, using regions of interest defined in normals. Patient findings were compared with the results of IAT performed as part of routine clinical evaluation. RESULTS: Task activation was nearly symmetric in normal subjects, whereas in patients with TLE, significant asymmetries were observed. In all nine patients in whom the IAT result was interpretable, memory asymmetry by fMRI concurred with the findings of IAT including two patients with paradoxical IAT memory lateralization ipsilateral to seizure focus. CONCLUSIONS: fMRI can be used to detect asymmetries in memory activation in patients with TLE. Because fMRI studies are noninvasive and provide excellent spatial resolution for functional activation, these preliminary results suggest a promising role for fMRI in improving the preoperative evaluation for epilepsy surgery.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1997

Optical investigations of physiology: a study of intrinsic and extrinsic biomedical contrast.

The utility and performance of optical studies of tissue depends upon the contrast and the changes of contrast in health and disease and in functional activity. The contrast is determined both by the optical properties of extrinsic chromophores and scatterers but especially upon the changes evoked by physiological activity and pathological states. Here, we have focused upon absorption changes of the intrinsic probe, blood absorbance changes due to cortical hypoxia and to haematomas, giving, for particular conditions, absorbance changes of 0.15 and over 0.4 delta OD, respectively. Functional activity may give changes of blood volume of over 0.05 delta OD with some variability due to individual responses that is best expressed as histogram displays of the distribution of response among a significant population. Responses have been observed in prefrontal parietal and occipital functions (242 tests). Extrinsic probes afford signals dependent upon the dose tolerance of the subject and can readily equal or exceed the blood volume and oxygenation signals, and currently afford vascular volume and flow indications. However, contrast agents for the functional activity of cellular function are ultimately to be expected. Finally, light-scattering changes afford osmolyte-related responses and are here shown to indicate a larger signal attributed to cortical depolarization and K+ release in hypoxia/ischaemia. Thus, the optical method affords imaging of manifold contrasts that greatly enhance its specificity and sensitivity for diagnostic procedures.

Animals↗

PubMed1997

Correlation of diffusion MRI and heat shock protein in a rat embolic stroke model.

The expression of 70 kDa heat shock protein (HSP-70) in focal ischemia occurs in regions that sustain sub-lethal ischemic injury, and may therefore be considered as a biological marker of the ischemic penumbra. In a rat embolic stroke model, using fibrin-rich emboli, we correlated the expression of HSP-70 mRNA with diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to determine if HSP-70 mRNA expression was associated with alterations in the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) of brain tissue water, a putative early marker of cytotoxic injury that is readily measured in vivo. Serial ADC measurements were made for 120 min following embolic infarction in the right carotid artery territory. HSP-70 mRNA expression was observed at the boundaries of the densely ischemic zone, as judged by diffusion imaging. ADC values observed in HSP-70 mRNA-positive regions were intermediate between those observed in the ischemic core or in control regions. In addition, the volume of HSP-70 mRNA-positive tissue correlated positively with the volume of tissue showing intermediate ADC values at 120 min. These findings suggest that intermediate ADC values occur in penumbral regions. Heterogeneity of ischemic cellular injury is suggested as the basis for the intermediate ADC values observed in these regions.

Animals↗

PubMed1997

The sensitivity of low flip angle RARE imaging.

It is demonstrated that the stability of the Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (CPMG) sequence reflects the existence of a steady state solution to the Bloch equations in the absence of T2 and T1 decay. The steady state theory is then used to evaluate the performance of low flip angle RARE imaging sequences with both constant and optimally varied refocusing flip angles. The theory is experimentally verified in phantoms and then optimized, single shot, low flip angle RARE is used to obtain artifact-free images from the brain of a normal volunteer.

Algorithms↗

PubMed1997

Phase insensitive preparation of single-shot RARE: application to diffusion imaging in humans.

Although RARE and GRASE can produce single-shot images of excellent quality, their utility has been restricted because preparation of the magnetization with interesting contrast before imaging can cause severe artifacts. These artifacts relate to the strong sensitivity of multiple spin echo sequences to the phase of the prepared magnetization. Modifications of the RARE sequence to eliminate these artifacts are discussed, and an approach that eliminates the artifact producing signals from the very first echo is presented. The approach is applied to diffusion imaging of the human brain in normal volunteers and one patient.

Aged↗

PubMed1997

A functional MRI study of mental image generation.

The neural substrates of mental image generation were investigated with functional MRI. Subjects listened to words under two different instructional conditions: to generate visual mental images of the words' referents, or to simply listen to each word and wait for the next word. Analyses were performed which directly compared the regional brain activity during each condition, with the goal of discovering whether mental image generation engages modality-specific visual areas, whether it engages primary visual cortex, and whether it recruits the left hemisphere to a greater extent than the right. Results revealed that visual association cortex, and not primary visual cortex, was engaged during the mental image generation condition. Left inferior temporal lobe (Brodmann's area 37) was the most reliably and robustly activated area across subjects, had activity which extended superiorly into occipital association cortex (area 19). The results of this experiment support the hypothesis that visual mental imagery is a function of visual association cortex, and that image generation is asymmetrically localized to the left.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1996

Optimization of torque-balanced asymmetric head gradient coils.

Local gradient coils can improve the performance of echo-planar, diffusion, and short TE imaging in the brain. A modified singular value decomposition algorithm, which allows the rapid optimization and comparison of designs, was employed to optimize head size gradient coils. A theoretical expression for the torque on a cylindrical coil is presented and used to design coils that are free from torque while pulsed within a magnetic field. Gradient coils of various lengths both with and without torque constraints were compared; although torque-free coils do not perform as well as unbalanced coils, asymmetric torque-balanced coils can achieve comparable homogeneity with only a modest increase in inductance and resistance. Both types of coils outperform body size gradient coils by a dramatic margin. A three-axis head gradient designed using these techniques was constructed and used for brain imaging on a clinical scanner.

Brain↗

PubMed1996

Functional activation during an auditory comprehension task in patients with temporal lobe lesions.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to map regional brain activation during an auditory comprehension task in two normal controls and two patients with left temporal lobe lesions. Activity in the superior temporal and angular gyrus regions was detected in all normal subjects. In the patients, the spatial distribution of activation ipsilateral to the lesions differed from the pattern observed in contralateral cortex or in control subjects. These studies highlight the potential of fMRI for mapping abnormal functional anatomy in the human brain.

Adult↗

PubMed1996

Detection of acute pathologic changes following experimental traumatic brain injury using diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging.

Standard magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been shown to be remarkably insensitive to acute changes following traumatic brain injury. Because diffusion-weighted MRI has recently demonstrated excellent sensitivity to acute ischemic injury and other CNS abnormalities, we evaluated the use of diffusion MRI for the detection of pathologic changes in the rat brain during the first hours following parasagittal fluid percussion brain injury. Diffusion MRI was able to demonstrate a significant diffusion decrease in the primary cortical contusion injury and a comparable decrease in the ipsilateral thalamus. Tissue damage in the thalamus region is much weaker than in the cortex, but the thalamus is a primary site of axonal and dendritic injury in this model. T2 imaging in the same subjects showed slight enhancement in the neighborhood of the injured cortex but was unable to demonstrate injury elsewhere. Diffusion imaging was superior to T2 at demonstrating injury and the prominent diffusion decrease in the thalamus suggests that diffusion MRI is preferentially sensitive to axonal or dendritic injury.

Animals↗

PubMed1996

Reduced transit-time sensitivity in noninvasive magnetic resonance imaging of human cerebral blood flow.

Herein, we present a theoretical framework and experimental methods to more accurately account for transit effects in quantitative human perfusion imaging using endogenous magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast. The theoretical transit time sensitivities of both continuous and pulsed inversion spin tagging experiments are demonstrated. We propose introducing a delay following continuous labeling, and demonstrate theoretically that introduction of a delay dramatically reduces the transit time sensitivity of perfusion imaging. The effects of magnetization transfer saturation on this modified continuous labeling experiment are also derived, and the assumption that the perfusion signal resides entirely within tissue rather than the arterial microvasculature is examined. We present results demonstrating the implementation of the continuous tagging experiment with delay on an echoplanar scanner for measuring cerebral blood flow (CBF) in normal volunteers. By varying the delay, we estimate transit times in the arterial system, values that are necessary for assessing the accuracy of our quantification. The effect of uncertainties in the transit time from the tagging plane to the arterial microvasculature and the transit time to the tissue itself on the accuracy of perfusion quantification is discussed and found to be small in gray matter but still potentially significant in white matter. A novel method for measuring T1, which is fast, insensitive to contamination by cerebrospinal fluid, and compatible with the application of magnetization transfer saturation, is also presented. The methods are combined to produce quantitative maps of resting and hypercarbic CBF.

Cerebrovascular Circulation↗

PubMed1996

Coupling of cortical and thalamic ictal activity in human partial epilepsy: demonstration by functional magnetic resonance imaging.

PURPOSE: To localize metabolic coupling between a cortical seizure focus and other brain regions by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data of ictal events obtained in a patient with frequent partial seizures involving his right face. METHODS: Cross-correlation analysis was used to examine time-dependent alterations in regional signal intensity that correlated with signal-intensity changes from a well-characterized cortical seizure focus in a patient with frequent partial seizures. RESULTS: Signal changes in the left ventrolateral thalamus showed a high degree of temporal correlation with signal changes in the left frontal cortical seizure focus, demonstrating close corticothalamic coupling of metabolism. CONCLUSIONS: A significant role for thalamocortical interactions in the pathophysiology of epilepsy has been suggested by studies in animal models and human patients. This finding provides further support for the integral involvement of the thalamus in human focal epilepsy and underscores the potential for identifying neuronal networks by using cross-correlation analysis of fMRI data.

Adult↗

PubMed1995

The neural basis of the central executive system of working memory.

Working memory refers to a system for temporary storage and manipulation of information in the brain, a function critical for a wide range of cognitive operations. It has been proposed that working memory includes a central executive system (CES) to control attention and information flow to and from verbal and spatial short-term memory buffers. Although the prefrontal cortex is activated during both verbal and spatial passive working memory tasks, the brain regions involved in the CES component of working memory have not been identified. We have used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine brain activation during the concurrent performance of two tasks, which is expected to engage the CES. Activation of the prefrontal cortex was observed when both tasks are performed together, but not when they are performed separately. These results support the view that the prefrontal cortex is involved in human working memory.

Adult↗

PubMed1995

Localization of subclinical ictal activity by functional magnetic resonance imaging: correlation with invasive monitoring.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with susceptibility-based contrast was used to detect focal changes in cerebral blood flow and metabolism in a patient with focal epilepsy. The patient presented with frequent partial motor seizures involving his right lower face that spread to produce speech arrest and occasionally right arm jerking. Consciousness was never impaired during these events. A multislice echoplanar technique was used to acquire 16 contiguous axial slices every 4 seconds for 11 minutes. Although no overt seizures were observed or reported by the patient during the scanning, a time series analysis of the functional data revealed focal signal-intensity changes in the posterior left frontal lobe, which correlated well both in duration and spatial localization with ictal activity subsequently recorded by invasive electrophysiological monitoring. The spatial localization of fMRI was more accurate than electroencephalography recorded from a subdural grid in predicting the site of successful surgical therapy. These results illustrate the potential of functional MRI for localizing seizure foci with high spatial and temporal resolution. Such studies can be readily combined with high-resolution anatomical imaging, task-activation studies, and other magnetic resonance techniques.

Adult↗

PubMed1995

Multi-slice, breathhold imaging of the lung with submillisecond echo times.

The signal from the lungs is heavily attenuated by T2 and T2 decay in standard MR images of the thorax. The authors utilized the capabilities of a prototype fast gradient system to develop a multi-slice gradient echo sequence that can obtain images with an echo time of 0.7 ms. Images acquired in a single breath-hold are free from respiratory motion artifacts and clearly display signal from lung parenchyma. The use of fast gradients makes short echo times possible without the use of nonstandard RF pulses and spatial encoding techniques and their associated limitations.

Artifacts↗

PubMed1995

New magnetic resonance imaging techniques for the evaluation of traumatic brain injury.

Although current computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques have shown great utility in diagnosing various aspects traumatic brain injury, damage resulting from mild diffuse brain injury often goes undetected with these procedures. Newly developed MRI techniques, including magnetization transfer imaging (MTI) and diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), have been proposed to have enhanced sensitivities for identifying damage induced by both diffuse and focal brain injury. Results from recent initial studies with experimental models of brain injury suggest that MTI may be useful for evaluating diffuse white matter damage, while DWI may demonstrate regions of focal contusion more acutely and with greater accuracy than conventional MRI procedures.

Brain Injuries↗

PubMed1994

A method for in vivo high resolution MRI of rat spinal cord injury.

We have developed an implanted radiofrequency coil to obtain high resolution in vivo MR images at 1.9 Tesla of rat spinal cords that have been injured using a standardized weight drop technique. The signal-to-noise ratio and motion artifact suppression of these images is superior to that achieved in earlier attempts at this field strength using an external surface coil. The high quality and spatial resolution provided by this technique afford the possibility for longitudinal studies of experimental spinal cord injury before and after treatment, as well as detailed correlation of in vivo MRI contrast, histopathological findings, and functional deficit, in a controlled setting.

Animals↗