Samantha J Ma¹, Chenyang Zhao¹, Kai Wang¹, Xingfeng Shao¹, Soroush Heidari Pahlavian¹, Farshid Sepehrband¹, Kay Jann¹, Lirong Yan¹, and Danny JJ Wang^1
1University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States

B₁⁺ field inhomogeneity is an ongoing issue that plagues whole-brain anatomical imaging at ultra-high field, hindering its translation to the clinic. This work evaluates and compares the latest commercially available options for RF shimming using NOVA 1Tx/32Rx and parallel 8Tx/32Rx coil systems. Various configurations including the use of dielectric pads for 1Tx, or volume-selective and patient-specific RF shimming with pTx, were systematically compared with the purpose of evaluating benefits for clinically relevant anatomical imaging. Experimental results showed a consistent significant drop in the B₁⁺ field map in the temporal lobe, which was ameliorated using pTx.

Venkata Veerendranadh Chebrolu^1,2, Ravi Seethamraju³, Eric G Stinson^1,2, Georgeta Mihai ⁴, Vera Kimbrell ⁴, and Srinivasan Mukundan, Jr.^4
1Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc., Rochester, MN, United States, ²Department of Radiology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, United States, ³Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc., Boston, MA, United States, ⁴Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States

Receive non-uniformity is one of the challenges that impacts 7T MRI and should be addressed for improved interpretation of brain images. Furthermore, segmentation algorithms that perform volumetric analysis of brain structures often require uniform signal intensity throughout the brain volume to function effectively. Uniform combined reconstruction (UNICORN) was recently reported as a method to improve receive uniformity in 7T musculoskeletal MRI; however, it has not yet been applied to brain imaging. The purpose of this work is to apply UNICORN to brain imaging and quantitatively evaluate its efficacy in improving intensity uniformity in 7T-MRI of the brain.

Thomas B Shaw¹, Steffen Bollmann¹, Nicole T Atcheson¹, Lachlan T Strike¹, Christine Guo², Katie L McMahon³, Jurgen Fripp⁴, Margaret J Wright¹, Olivier Salvado^4,5, and Markus Barth^1
1The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, ²QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Intstitute, Brisbane, Australia, ³Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, ⁴CSIRO Health and Biosecurity, Brisbane, Australia, ⁵CSIRO Data61, Sydney, Australia

MR image quality is affected greatly by participant movement. Anatomical image quality can be improved by acquiring consecutive anatomical scans and combining them to boost SNR and sharpness. We aimed to find the optimal combination method of three repetitions of high-resolution turbo spin-echo (TSE) scans, commonly used for hippocampus subfield segmentation. We used non-linear realignment between the TSE repetitions in a range of participants at 3T and 7T and found that image segmentation reliability and sharpness were higher for the non-linear realignment technique, as compared to linearly realigned, and averaged methods. Hippocampus image segmentation greatly benefits from this technique.

Ritobrato Datta¹, Micky K Bacchus¹, Sudipto Dolui², Brenda L Banwell¹, and Manoj Saranathan^3
1Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ²University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ³University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, United States

The efficacy of the Thalamus Optimized Multi-Atlas Segmentation (THOMAS) algorithm for segmentation of thalamic nuclei with multi-echo MP2RAGE images is studied in 7T. 9 subjects are evaluated on thalamic nuclei delineated on WMn-MPRAGE and ME-MP2RAGE images. We demonstrate that the algorithm performs as well on ME-MP2RAGE as on WMn-MPRAGE images. This indicates that THOMAS can be used on more commonly acquired MP2RAGE for wider use.

Roy AM Haast¹, Jonathan C Lau^1,2, Dimo Ivanov³, Kamil Uludag^4,5, and Ali R Khan^1,6
1Robarts Research Institute, Western University, London, ON, Canada, ²Department of Clinical Neurological Sciences, Division of Neurosurgery, Western University, London, ON, Canada, ³Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands, ⁴Institute for Basic Science, Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, Republic of Korea, ⁵University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada, ⁶Department of Medical Biophysics, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Western University, London, ON, Canada

We examined the effect of B₁⁺ inhomogeneities in 7T MP2RAGE data on hippocampal morphometry using volume- and surface-based evaluation methods. As for the cortex, significant variability in hippocampal and subcortical segmentation outputs are observed between original and corrected MP2RAGE data, especially near GM-CSF boundaries. Importantly, results of data acquired at two sites, using different MR hardware and sequence setups (B₁⁺-sensitive vs insensitive), become more comparable after B₁⁺ correction. These data emphasize the dependency of segmentation performances on anatomical image quality, and stresses the need for careful consideration of sequence parameters when setting up imaging protocols.

Jia Guo¹, Nanyan Zhu², Yanping Sun³, Sabrina J. Gjerswold-Selleck⁴, Hong-Jian Wei^5,6, Pavan S. Upadhyayula^6,7, Angeliki Mela^6,7, Cheng-Chia Wu^5,6, Peter D. Canoll^6,7, John T. Vaughan⁴, Douglas L. Rothman⁸, and Scott A. Small^9
1Department of Psychiatry, and Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States, ²Department of Biological Science, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States, ³Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States, ⁴Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States, ⁵Department of Radiation Oncology, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States, ⁶Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States, ⁷Department of Pathology and Cell Biology, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States, ⁸Departments of Diagnostic Radiology, or Biomedical Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States, ⁹Departments of Neurology, Radiology or Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States

This abstract describes a novel dynamic T2-relaxation contrast magnetic resonance imaging (DRC-MRI) protocol for mapping the cerebral perfusion dynamics in mice. We demonstrate how to quantify cerebral perfusion dynamics with the proposed DRC modeling, which combines features of both dynamic and the steady-state methods. Quantitative analysis on both simulated and in vivo experimental data are performed. We first validate the reliability of our DRC modeling protocol with healthy mice before we apply the protocol on a tumor treatment study. We are able to demonstrate its ability to model the treatment effect of Etoposide on Glioblastoma in mice.

Helen Murray¹, Stephen Dodd², Miriam Scadeng¹, Maurice Curtis¹, and Alan Koretsky^2
1Department of Anatomy and Medical Imaging, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand, ²Laboratory of Functional and Molecular Imaging, NINDS, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, United States

Measuring  anatomical structures in the olfactory bulb may be useful in studying neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.  Preliminary magnetic resonance microscopy images of the olfactory bulb and tract have been obtained at high resolution (19-25 μm isotropic) and shown to have features that correlate well with immunohistochemical staining.

Eric G. Stinson^1,2, Peter Kollasch^1,2, John Lane², Kirk Welker², and Andrew J. Fagan^2
1Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc., Rochester, MN, United States, ²Radiology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, United States

Post-contrast imaging is useful for visualizing enhancing lesions, but when using MPRAGE at 7T the high vascular signal, gray/white matter contrast, and susceptibility-induced artifacts can confound visualization of enhancing lesions. T1-weighted SPACE imaging has been shown to provide improved visualization at 3T, but has not been used at 7T. Here, we show improved visualization of enhancing lesions at 7T with a T1 SPACE technique that avoids the downsides of post-Gadolinium MPRAGE imaging.

Stephen Jones¹, Jessica Cooperrider¹, Daniel Lockwood¹, Sean Nagel¹, Emmanuel Obusez¹, Richard Rammo¹, Paul Ruggieri¹, Andre Machado¹, and Mark Lowe^1
1Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, United States

High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) in now entering clinical practice, for example to treat essential tremor by causing small lesions in the thalamus. Due to small size of treatment lesions, treatment success depends critically on targeting, which is classically done using measurments and landmarks.  We explore an alternative method using functional imaging to guide targeting, specifically using 7T resting state connectivity. We present preliminary data of the patterns of connectivity possible with 7T using a concatenated series of healthy subjects. Finally, we show the changes in connectivity in a post-HIFU patient from the thalamus to the cortex.

Remi Patriat¹, Lauren Schrock¹, Michael C Park¹, Jerrold Vitek¹, and Noam Harel^1
1University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) in the subthalamic nucleus (STN) is an effective therapy for the motor signs associated with Parkinson’s disease. The STN is organized into three main functional territories, motor, associative and limbic, that can be identified using structural connectivity-based parcellation. While many may argue that the DBS electrode should be implanted in the sensorimotor region for maximum motor benefits, the optimal location within the STN remains under debate. In this study we describe a patient who experienced STN-DBS-induced depression, which was significantly alleviated following revision of the electrode. A 7T imaging-based reconstruction provides an explanation for this observation.   

Job van den Hurk^1,2, Mathijs de Rijk³, Sajjad M Rahnama'i³, and Gommert van Koeveringe^4
1Scannexus Ultra-High Field MRI Center, Maastricht, Netherlands, ²Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands, ³Department of Urology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands, ⁴Department of Urology, Maastricht University Medical Center (MUMC+), Maastricht, Netherlands

The periaqueductal grey (PAG) is a brainstem nucleus involved in storage and voiding of urine. We developed a novel method for creating dynamic response profiles for PAG, which requires three resting state ultra-high resolution fMRI datasets to be acquired: the first when the participant has an empty bladder, the second during filling of the bladder while subjective bladder sensations are recorded, and the third with a full bladder. PAG is functionally parcellated based on the full bladder scan, after which functional connectivity between the clusters is assessed for different states of bladder sensation. 

Nastaren Abad^1,2, Hannah Elizabeth Alderson^1,2, Michael Gordon Harrington³, and Samuel Colles Grant^1,2
1National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, United States, ²Chemical & Biomedical Engineering, FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, Tallahassee, FL, United States, ³Neurosciences, Huntington Medical Research Institutes, Pasadena, CA, United States

Dysfunctional ionic and metabolic regulation is evident in migraine, preceeding behavioral onset of pain and culminating in the extensive clinical (pre, peri and post-ictal) features presented in migraine. It, therefore, stands to reason that the ionic and metabolic abnormalities may induce microvascular blood flow changes in brain tissue, with altered perfusion not as an inciting event but as a response underlying ionic impacts. To elucidate the timing of hemodynamic effects in migraine, the overarching aim of this study is to investigate perfusion changes that potentially follow triggered migraine.

Stephanie S. G. Brown^1,2, Kristen Dams-O'Connor³, Priti Balchandani⁴, and Rebecca E. Feldman^5
1Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom, ²Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai / University of Cambridge, New York, NY, United States, ³Brain Injury Research Centre, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, United States, ⁴Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, United States, ⁵Department of Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, and Statistics, University of British Columbia, Kelowna, BC, Canada

This case study investigates the structural effects of traumatic brain injury for the first time using pre-injury and post-injury 7 Tesla MRI longitudinal data. We report findings of initial volumetric changes, decreased structural connectivity and reduced microstructural order that appear to return to baseline 8 months post-injury, suggestive of long-term plasticity and recovery.

Rita Gil¹ and Noam Shemesh^1
1Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme, Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, Lisbon, Portugal

Dark rearing (DR) profoundly affects visual processing. Decreased flash responsiveness and increased off-response latencies were reported in DR mice visual cortex (VC). Here, we targeted such plastic changes in activation dynamics using ultrafast fMRI upon mice monocular visual stimulation. Our results, targeting the most of the pathway, showed decreased BOLD amplitudes in most visual pathway structures as well as less well-defined neuronal input order. Activation maps revealed marked increases in ipsilateral response in DR mice compared to controls. These results reveal that BOLD fMRI can depict visual pathway plasticity, and suggests a naïve and unskilled network upon DR.

Subin Erattakulangara¹ and Sajan Goud Lingala^1
1Biomedical Engineering, University of Iowa, iowa city, IA, United States

We develop a fully automated airway segmentation method to segment the vocal tract airway from surrounding soft tissue in speech MRI. We train a U-net architecture to learn the end to end mapping between a mid-sagittal image, and the manually segmented airway. We base our training on MRI of sustained speech sound database and dynamic speech MRI database. Once trained, our model performs fast airway segmentations on unseen images. We demonstrate the proposed U-NET based airway segmentation to provide considerably improved DICE similarity compared to existing seed-growing segmentation, and minor differences in DICE similarity compared to manual segmentation

Pierre-André Vuissoz¹, Karyna Isaieva¹, Ioannis Douros^1,2, Yves Laprie², Freddy Odille^1,3, and Jacques Felblinger^1,3
1IADI Université de Lorraine, INSERM U1254, Nancy, France, ²LORIA Université de Lorraine, CNRS, Inria, Nancy, France, ³CIC-IT 1433 INSERM, CHRU de Nancy, Nancy, France

Dynamic images acquired with real-time radial Flash sequence and nonlinear reconstruction pipeline are compared for two set of parameters standard protocol and an higher resolution set trading real-time reconstruction constrain for an increase in spatial resolution. The spatial resolution improvement is assessed using sharpness index and quality of automatic edge detection. 

Xiao-Quan Xu¹, Wei Chen¹, Yong-Ming Dai², and Fei-Yun Wu^1
1The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China, ²United Imaging Healthcare, Shanghai, China

To evaluate the feasibility of DWI and a  FROC diffusion model to diagnose salivary gland tumors.

Rob Lloyd^1,2, Iain Ball³, Marcus Stoodley⁴, and Lynne Bilston^1,2
1Neuroscience Research Australia, Randwick, Australia, ²Prince of Wales Clinical School, University of New South Wales, Randwick, Australia, ³Philips Australia & New Zealand, North Ryde, Australia, ⁴Department of Clinical Medicine, Macquarie University, Macquarie Park, Australia

Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flow, as characterised by real-time PCMRI, may inform surgeons whether a patient with Chiari malformation may benefit from decompression surgery. 5 healthy controls and 7 Chiari patients with (N=4) and without (N=3) coughing headache underwent MRI scanning to measure CSF velocities while coughing. Results suggest that Chiari patients with coughing triggered headaches have increased CSF velocities at the foramen magnum during a cough compared with both controls and patients without headache. This may help understand the mechanisms of coughing triggered headaches and provide a useful indicator for clinicians.

Gwang-Won Kim^1,2, Kwangsung Park^1,3, and Gwang-Woo Jeong^4
1Advanced Institute of Aging Science, Chonnam National University, Gwangju, Korea, Republic of, ²Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States, ³Department of Urology, Chonnam National University Hospital, Gwangju, Korea, Republic of, ⁴Department of Radiology, Chonnam National University Medical School, Gwangju, Korea, Republic of

Recent functional magnetic resonance imaging studies revealed that the sexual orientation of male-to-female transsexuals have a specific tendency of female-like brain function during sexual arousal; however, the relationships between brain morphology and brain activation patterns reflecting sexual orientation in postoperative female-to-male (FTM) transsexuals are currently unknown. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the brain activation pattern associated with sexual orientation and its correlation with the level of the free testosterone in postoperative FTM transsexuals. This study was also performed to discriminate the gray and white matter volume differences between FTM transsexuals and female controls.

Qiyong Ai¹, Ann D. King¹, Huimin Zhang¹, and Weitian Chen^1
1The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

T1rho imaging is a new MRI sequence for cancer evaluation but the repeatability of this sequence in the head and neck region is unknown. T1rho imaging of the head and neck was performed three times comprising an initial scan (scan 1) followed by a scan 30 minutes (scan 2) and 14 days (scan 3) later. The repeatability, agreement and variance for the parotid gland, palatine tonsil and tongue were assessed by comparing scan 1 and 2 and comparing scan 1 and 3. Results suggested that T1rho imaging could be a reliable sequence for use in the head and neck.

Qiying Tang¹, Jianjun Zhou¹, and Puyeh Wu^2
1Xiamen Branch, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Xiamen, China, ²MR Research China, GE Healthcare, Beijing, China

Diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) has not yet been widely studied in thyroid disease diagnosis. Here we investigate the feasibility of DKI in distinguishing thyroid adenoma (TA) from papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). We found that quantitative measurements provided by DKI were significantly different between TA and PTC. A higher area under the curve of mean diffusivity (MD)  in discriminating TA from PTC was also observed. We concluded that DKI can be used as a feasible technique and benefit the diagnostic performance in distinguishing between TA and PTC.

Huiming Liu¹, Tie-bao Meng¹, Haoqiang He¹, Long Qian², Weiyin Liu², and Chuanmiao Xie^1
1Department of Radiology, Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, China, ²MR Research, GE Healthcare, Beijing, China

MRI is the primary image diagnosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) at the stage T or N. For diagnosis of NPC, the presence of skull-based invasion is an important indicator for grading. In the early tumor infiltration, tumor cells have invaded bone marrow without re-arrangement of trabecular and cortical bones. Routine MRI diagnosis depends on physician’s objectively visual determination without quantification and standardization. Our study showed that T1 and T2 values in patients with skull-based invasion of NPC were higher and lower than healthy volunteers, respectively. MAGiC imaging sequence could help physicians determine NPC with or without skull-based invasion.

Sisi Li¹, Zhangxuan Hu¹, Yishi Wang², and Hua Guo^1
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Center for Biomedical Imaging Research, Beijing, China, ²Philips Healthcare, Beijing, China

The combination of MR neurography (MRN) and comprehensive quantitative MRI is of great clinical significance for pathological analysis of peripheral nerves. This study aims to investigate simultaneous MRN, T2, T2* mapping of lumbar plexus by using a distortion-free multishot technique, Point-Spread-Function Encoded EPI (PSF-EPI). Particularly, the quantitative T2 and T2* mapping are conducted by using the multiple echo-shifted intermediate images of PSF-EPI. Also, PSF-EPI can be highly accelerated by the titled-CAIPI acquisition scheme. The acquisition time can be reduced to around 2 minutes. The efficacy of PSF-EPI is demonstrated on healthy volunteers and patients.

Long Qian^1,2, Xu-yun Wen³, Si-dong Liu⁴, Wei-qiang Dou¹, and Tie-bao Meng^5
1MR Research, GE Healthcare, Beijing, China, ²1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, China, ³School of Data and Computer Science, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China, ⁴Department of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, ⁵Department of Medical Imaging, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, China

Our goal is to propose a new approach to construct the brain anatomical connectivity networks using T1 mapping, and verify whether this novel brain network has higher Small-Worldness and efficiency organization. We reviewed the previous studies, and discovered that the cortical layers could be delineated on the basis of myeloarchitecture, while T1 mapping strongly correlated with intro-cortical myelin contents. Hence, it is feasible to quantify the anatomical connectivity using T1 mapping. Our resulted supported our hypothesis and highlighted the higher Small-Worldness and efficiency of this network compared with conventional macroscale cortical morphometry based approach.

Michael Nicholas Hoff¹, Nathan M Cross², Daniel S Hippe², Charles G Colip², and Jalal B Andre^2
1Radiology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States, ²Radiology, University of Washington, SEATTLE, WA, United States

Imaging pathology in the internal auditory canal and orbits benefits from techniques such as bSSFP MRI due to its high time efficiency and SNR.  Here the geometric solution (GS) is proposed in concert with bSSFP for temporal bone and orbit imaging to circumvent banding and motion artifacts.  The GS-bSSFP technique is validated in a cohort of patients scheduled for evaluation of treated vestibular schwannoma.  Three blinded neuroradiologists found that GS-bSSFP exceeded comparable techniques in terms of image quality and diagnostic utility.  

Satoshi Nakajima¹, Yasutaka Fushimi¹, Yusuke Yokota¹, Sonoko Oshima¹, Sayo Otani¹, Azusa Sakurama¹, Krishna Pandu Wicaksono¹, Yuichiro Sano², Ryo Matsuda², Masahito Nambu², Koji Fujimoto³, Hitomi Numamoto⁴, Kanae Kawai Miyake⁴, Tsuneo Saga⁴, and Kaori Togashi^1
1Department of Diagnostic Imaging and Nuclear Medicine, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan, ²MRI Systems Division, Canon Medical Systems Corporation, Otawara, Japan, ³Human Brain Research Center, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan, ⁴Department of Advanced Medical Imaging Research, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan

Deep learning reconstruction (DLR) is a novel denoising processing. We applied DLR to a compressed sensing (CS) sequence of orbital thin-slice fat-suppressed T2-weighted imaging with one number of excitation (NEX). A CS sequence with one NEX without DLR and a conventional sequence with two NEX were also obtained to evaluate the denoising performance. Combined usage of DLR with CS reduced image noise and improved the image quality of the optic nerves and the medial rectus muscles, while achieving shorter acquisition time, compared with the CS and the conventional sequences without DLR.

Johann Malte Enno Jende¹, Stefan Kopf², Zoltan Kender², Artur Hahn¹, Jakob Morgenstern³, Peter Paul Nawroth², Martin Bendszus¹, and Felix Tobias Kurz^1
1Neuroradiology, Heidelberg University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany, ²Internal Medicine I / Endocrinology, Heidelberg University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany, ³Laboratory medicine, Heidelberg University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany

Diabetic neuropathy (DN) is one of the most severe complications of Diabetes mellitus. This study sought to investigate potential correlations between high sensitivity Troponin T (hsTNT) assays and peripheral nerve fractional anisotropy (FA) in diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in 51 patients with diabetes. We found negative correlations of hsTNT with the sciatic nerve's FA (r=-0.52;p<0.001) and sural, tibial, and peroneal nerve conduction velocities (0.65,p<0.001; r=-0.44,p=0.002, and r=-0.42,p=0.003, respectively). Our results indicate that hsTNT is a potential marker for microangiopathy-related nerve damage in diabetic neuropathy.   

Seema Bhat¹, Hanumantharaju M C², Rita G Nunes³, and Sairam Geethanath^1,4
1Medical Imaging Research Center,Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering, Bangalore, India, ²Dept. of Electronics and Communication, BMS Institute of Technology and Management, Bangalore, India, ³Institute for Systems and Robotics /Department of Bioengineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal, Lisbon, Portugal, ⁴Dept. of Radiology, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, Newyork, NY, United States

Stroke is one of the major reasons for death and disability globally. The abstract aims to review    stroke imaging in geographies with limited access to scanners, particularly North Eastern India and the interior regions of Portugal. The critical operating window of treatment to reverse the damage is of few hours.  Neuroimaging plays a significant role in diagnosis and treatment of stroke. It is necessary to explore accessible methods to deliver point of care MR stroke services in such regions. The current work includes stroke incidence, disability adjusted life years, scanner density and feasibility of low field MRI for stroke.

Rupsa Bhattacharjee¹, Rakesh Kumar Gupta², Vijay Kant Dixit³, Praveen Gupta⁴, and Indrajit Saha^1
1Philips Health Systems, Philips India Limited, Gurugram, India, ²Department of Radiology, Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurugram, India, ³Department of Interventional Neuroradiology, Fortis Memorial research Institute, Gurugram, India, ⁴Department of Neurology, Fortis Memorial research Institute, Gurugram, India

In this study, we propose a modified fast MR 8-minutes stroke protocol including Flair-TSE, DWI, SWI, 3D-pCASL and 3D-non-contrast-MRA that can provide complete information covering the whole spectrum of core-infarct, hemorrhagic-components, vessel-occlusion and ischemic-penumbra. The time duration of this protocol is sufficiently shorter with the benefit of using Compressed-SENSE acceleration algorithm. This MR based stroke protocol does not involve any harmful radiation and contrast media. In our study, this protocol is validated in clinical setting and benefits the therapy-planning of about 70% of patients presented acute ischemic stroke. This protocol has the potential to be adapted for acute-stroke management strategies.

Chen Cao^1,2, Zhiyang Liu³, Guohua Liu³, Jinxia Zhu⁴, Song Jin¹, and Shuang Xia^5
1Key Laboratory for Cerebral Artery and Neural Degeneration of Tianjin, Radiology Department, Tianjin Huanhu Hospital, Tianjin, China, ²Radiology Department, First Central Clinical College, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China, ³Tianjin Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Sensor and Sensing Network Technology, College of Electronic Information and Optical Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin, China, ⁴MR Collaboration, Siemens Healthcare Ltd, Beijing, China, ⁵Radiology Department, Tianjin First Central Hospital, Tianjin, China

We hypothesized that deep weakly-supervised learning could detect acute ischemic stroke (AIS) and hemorrhagic infarction (HI) lesions using diffusion-weighted imaging. Each image slice was assigned an annotation indicating whether or not the slice contained a lesion. The proposed method was trained on an AIS dataset using 417 patients with weakly-labeled lesions and evaluated on a dataset using 319 patients with fully-labeled lesions, which detected lesions with high accuracy. The method was trained on a HI dataset using 240 patients with weakly-labeled lesions and evaluated using 65 patients with fully-labeled lesions. Lesion detection sensitivities were 87.7% (AISs) and 86.2% (HIs).

Hao Wang¹, Liyun Zheng², Jixian Lin^3,4, Jing Zhao³, Bin Song¹, and Yongming Dai^2
1Department of Radiology, Minhang Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, ²United Imaging Healthcare, MR collaboration, Shanghai, China, ³Department of Neurology, Minhang Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, ⁴Department of Electronic Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

Ischemic stroke is characterized by the sudden loss of blood circulation to an area in the brain. Conventional imaging methods, including CT and MR, were difficult to evaluate and quantify the surface patterns of lesions. As textural features could serve as quantitative biomarkers of variation in surface intensity or patterns, in this study, we explored the feasibility of texture analysis (TA) based on T2-weighted fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (T2-FLAIR) as well as apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) in predicting the prognosis of ischemic stroke. Our results indicated that the texture features could differentiate minor stroke from severe stroke, and detect functional outcomes.

Ji Hyun Lee¹, Jeffrey Solomon^1,2, Donna Perry¹, Jennifer Sword¹, Marcelo Castro¹, Joseph Laux¹, Rebecca Reeder¹, Yu Cong¹, Ian Crozier^1,2, Irwin M Feuerstein¹, and Dima Hammoud^3
1Integrated Research Facility, Division of Clinical Research, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Frederick, MD, United States, ²Clinical Monitoring Research Program Directorate, Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD, United States, ³Center for Infectious Disease Imaging, Radiology and Imaging Sciences, Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, United States

The purpose of this study was to utilize advanced post processing analysis to assess the degree of meningeal inflammation in an animal model of Lassa virus induced meningoencephalitis.  Subtraction analysis of co-registered pre- and post-contrast FLAIR images revealed various degrees of meningeal inflammation between animals. Histopathology confirmed viral meningoencephalitis. This approach can be helpful in detecting mild to severe degrees of meningeal inflammation in a variety of infectious diseases.

Han Lai¹, Song Wang¹, and Qiyong Gong^1
1Huaxi MR Research Center (HMRRC), Chengdu, China

Previous literature has shown importance of positive traits to a spectrum of health outcomes, in particular to subjective well-being. General self-efficacy (GSE), a kind of motivational belief in competence with prospective and operative nature, is one such trait. Here, structural magnetic resonance imaging along with self-report tests were applied to investigate neural basis of GSE and the underlying neural mechanism of how GSE promotes subjective well-being during late adolescence. Our findings showed a positive link between GSE and the left lenticular nucleus volume and revealed a mediating role of GSE in the relation of lenticular nucleus volume with affective well-being.

Maria Eugenia Caligiuri¹ and Angelo Labate^2
1Neuroscience Research Center, University "Magna Graecia", Catanzaro, Italy, ²Institute of Neurology, University "Magna Graecia", Catanzaro, Italy

Mesial Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (MTLE), the most common form of adult-onset epilepsy, represents a convenient candidate to study brain structural covariance networks. In particular, mild MTLE is a precious resource to study brain structure and function independently from the damage caused by seizure recurrence and medication use. In this work, we used graph analysis to investigate structural covariance networks in mild and refractory MTLE, and found that while the latter shows altered integration and segregation network properties, mMTLE has graph-based characteristics suggestive of a possibly inborn different brain organization that might act as protective factor against seizure recurrence.

Guohua Zhao^1,2, Zehua Liu¹, Jie Bai², Ankang Gao², Yusong Lin³, and Jingliang Cheng^2
1School of Information and Engineering, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China, ²Department of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China, ³School of Software, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China

Radiologists encounter difficulty in accurately distinguishing anaplastic astrocytoma from anaplastic oligodendroglioma based on images. Neurosurgeons prefer non-invasive determination of the 1p19q tumor status to prepare treatment plans early. This study aimed to satisfy clinical needs of multi departments by constructing two radiomic models based on magnetic resonance imaging. The models can help identify the two tumors through their imaging features and predict their 1p19q status. Good performance in terms of the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, sensitivity, and specificity was observed, suggesting the potential of our approach in supporting multidisciplinary clinical work

Catherine A Spilling¹, Mohani-Preet K Bajaj¹, Daniel R Burrage², Sachelle Ruickbie³, Emma H Baker², Thomas R Barrick¹, and Paul W Jones^2
1Neurosciences Research Centre, Molecular and Clinical Sciences Research Institute, St George's University of London, London, United Kingdom, ²Institute for Infection and Immunity, St George's University of London, London, United Kingdom, ³Respiratory Medicine, St George's University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom

Elderly cigarette smokers have an elevated risk of cognitive decline and neurological disease, however, the pathophysiological mechanisms are unclear. This study investigated which biological factors are responsible. 100 participants (age: 68±8 years, 69% male) with significant smoking history and range of respiratory and cardiovascular disease were recruited. Multiple linear regression showed that higher blood pressure, reduced respiratory function, hypoperfusion and biomarkers of cardiac (troponin T) damage and systemic inflammation (C-reactive protein) were associated with brain magnetic resonance markers of neurobiological damage and there may be complex interactions between them. Results support a vascular aetiology with contributions from systemic inflammation.

Sebastian Thomas¹, Simon Hubertus¹, Alycia Lee², Sabine Vollstädt-Klein*², and Lothar R. Schad*^1
1Computer Assisted Clinical Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany, ²Department of Addictive Behavior and Addiction Medicine, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany

The effects of smoking on human brain hemodynamics have been investigated in PET studies, but no real consensus has been found. In this study, an MRI-based approach using arterial spin labelling and multi-parametric quantitative BOLD is implemented to measure the chronic effects of cigarette smoking on the cerebral blood flow, oxygen extraction fraction and cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen. Chronic effects between smokers and never-smokers were detected in three regions for CBF, three regions for OEF, and one region for CMRO2.

Sanjeev Chawla¹, Emily Devlin², Claudia Ianelli³, Deepa Thakuri¹, Dushyant Kumar¹, Hari Hariharan¹, Suyash Mohan¹, James Loughead², Cynthia Neill Epperson³, Ravinder Reddy¹, and Ravi Prakash Reddy Nanga^1
1Department of Radiology, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ²Department of Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ³University of Clorado School of Medicine, Aurora, CO, United States

The purpose was to evaluate the differential degree of iron deposition in deep gray-matter regions in a healthy population of cigarette smokers (n=8) and non-smokers (n=7) using quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM). All subjects underwent anatomical imaging and 3D-susceptibiluty weighted imaging on a 7T MR system. A trend towards higher QSM was observed in smokers than in non-smokers from globus pallidus region. All other DGM regions also had higher QSM values in smokers compared to those of non-smokers, however, no significant differences were observed.  Future studies are warranted to validate our findings in a larger cohort.

Shih-Yu Huang¹, Ming-Chou Ho^2,3, and Jun-Cheng Weng^1,4,5
1Department of Medical Imaging and Radiological Sciences, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan, Taiwan, ²Department of Psychology, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan, ³Clinical Psychological Room, Chung Shan Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan, ⁴Medical Imaging Research Center, Institute for Radiological Research, Chang Gung University and Chang Gung Memorial Hospital at Linkou, Taoyuan, Taiwan, ⁵Department of Psychiatry, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Chiayi, Taiwan

Previous studies used memory retrieval-extinction procedure to successfully reduce the drug self-administration behavior in rats and heroin patients. The method was rarely used in smoking cessation. This study used resting-state fMRI to evaluate the effect of memory retrieval-extinction procedure on heavy smokers. We found that lower default mode network activity and higher reward system activation in smokers who finished the memory retrieval-extinction procedure. It may reflect a nonpharmacological method induced the smoking-related emotions but reduced smoking memory retrieval. In conclusion, our results could give a new perspective on clinical treatment for smoking cessation.

Mustapha Bouhrara¹, Nikkita Khattar¹, Luis E. Cortina¹, Abinand C. Rejimon¹, Elango Palchamy¹, Susan M. Resnick¹, and Richard G. Spencer^1
1NIA, NIH, Baltimore, MD, United States

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), relaxation time, and magnetization ratio (MTR)-based studies have shown that obesity negatively impacts microstructural white matter (WM) integrity. However, the specific impact of obesity on myelin content has not previously been evaluated. Here, we examined the relationship between obesity status, measured using body mass index (BMI), and myelin content, measured using myelin water fraction (MWF) mapping, a surrogate of myelin content, in a large age cohort of cognitively unimpaired lean, overweight, and obese subjects. Our results indicate that BMI is negatively associated with MWF in several brain WM regions.
 

Feifei Zhang¹, Zhiyun Jia¹, and Qiyong Gong^1
1Huaxi MR Research Center (HMRRC), Department of Radiology, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China, ChengDu, China

The most prominent finding is decreased static FC and FCC between the cingulate network (WM7) and other WM networks, especially the occipital network, precentral/postcentral network, inferior longitudinal fasciculus network and corona radiate network. The cingulate network is also identified as being affected by Jet Lag in that  there is a significant negative correlation between the cingulate and WM3 and GM7 and positive emotion scores. Taken together, these findings provide evidence that changes in WM FC, and especially of the cingulate, may be linked to an decrease in positive emotion as a symptom of Jet Lag.

Katarzyna Pierzchala¹, Dunja Simicic¹, Andrzej Sienkiewicz², Dario Sessa³, Stefanita Mitrea⁴, Olivier Braissant⁵, Valerie McLin³, Rolf Gruetter¹, and Cristina Cudalbu^4
1CIBM / LIFMET / EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland, ²LPMC / EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland, ³Center for Liver Disease in Children,Department of Paediatrics, HUG, Geneva, Switzerland, ⁴CIBM / EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland, ⁵Service of Clinical Chemistry, CHUV, Lausanne, Switzerland

Chronic hepatic encephalopathy (CHE) is a multifactorial disease. The presence of central nervous system (CNS) and systemic oxidative stress (OS) is thought to contribute to the pathogenesis of CHE. Clinically, it is known that peripheral inflammation contributes to acute worsening of patients with CHE. We used in-vivo ¹H-MRS, ex-vivo/in-vitro ESR and histology of CNS to investigate longitudinally the course of OS in the rat model of CHE. Our studies revealed antioxidant system impairment (decrease of CNS Asc and GSH, post-BDL) and increased CNS and systemic OS over the course of CHE progression, concomitant with CNS Gln and systemic NH4+ increase.

Yiwei Che¹, Yanwei Miao¹, Yuhan Jiang¹, Peipei Chang¹, Bingbing Gao¹, Qingwei Song¹, Ailian Liu¹, Jiazheng Wang², and Huai Max^2
1Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China, ²Philips Healthcare, Beijing, China

End-stage renal disease (ESRD) usually requires maintenance dialysis or kidney transplantation. However, whether maintenance of hemodialysis improves cerebral oxygen levels in patients with ESRD is unclear. This study aim to explore the changes in blood oxygen content in the venules of patients with ESRD who maintained hemodialysis were evaluated by measuring the phase value (Δφ) of deep venous magnetic susceptibility (SWI) in the deep brain. We found that the cerebral venous oxygen level in patients with hemodialysis ESRD was higher than that in the healthy control group. Maintaining hemodialysis may improve cerebral blood oxygen levels in ESRD patients.

Yutaka Hoshino¹, Hiroyuki Kameda¹, Taisuke Harada¹, Yuji Komaki², Tomoe Ishikawa³, Masato Yasui³, and Kohsuke Kudo^1
1Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Hokkaido University Hospital, Sapporo, Japan, ²Live Imaging Center, Central Institute for Experimental Animals, Kawasaki, Japan, ³Department of Pharmacology, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan

We evaluated the water kinetics of the brain of intoxication model mice to compare aquaporin-4-knockout (AQP4-KO) and wild-type (WT) control mice, using T2-weighted indirect MRI with ¹⁷O-labeled water. Eleven AQP4-KO and eight WT mice were scanned with 7T MRI using the RARE sequence. ¹⁷O-labeled water was administered intraperitoneally. The whole scanning took 540 phases and 45 min, and signals were converted to ¹⁷O concentrations. In ROIs of the brain parenchyma, steady-state ¹⁷O concentrations were slightly higher in AQP4-KO than in WT. The latest imaging method revealed that the deficiency of AQP4 might lead to water accumulation in the paravascular space.
 

Radek Skupienski^1,2, Kim Quang Do¹, and Lijing Xin^2
1Center for psychiatric neurosciences, Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV), Prilly-Lausanne, Switzerland, ²Center for Biomedical Imaging (CIBM), Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland

Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide is a key player of cell metabolism. Previously we demonstrated the feasibility of in vivo NAD measurement, by ³¹P-MRS, in mouse brain. Actually we established the profile of cerebral NAD⁺, NADH and NAD⁺/NADH in a mouse model relevant for schizophrenia and we followed the metabolites regulation during the development by a combination of ¹H-³¹P-MRS. We highlighted redox dysregulation associated with glutathione deficit, from 20 to 250 days old animals. This study provides prospective for understanding the molecular mechanism affecting brain development and regulation together with identification of potential therapeutic biomarker relevant for the pathophysiology of schizophrenia.

Akiko Uematsu^1,2, Junichi Hata², Makoto Fukushima², Noriyuki Kishi², Ayako Murayama², Shinsuke Koike³, and Hideyuki Okano^2,4
1Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, ²RIKEN CBS, Wako, Japan, ³Center for Evolutionary Cognitive Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, ⁴Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan

We delineated gray and white matter growth pattern of non-human primate from infancy to childhood in comprehensive manner with longitudinal T1w. T2w, and DWI data. Integrating the analysis of these different contrast images provided a variety of information, showing robust but regionally heterogeneous growth pattern. Such information suggested the components that contribute to structural maturation might be different among regions.