Tianyao Wang¹, Jialin Hu², Danni Wang², Yujie Hu², Jiahua Sun³, Jun Liu¹, Yudu Li^4,5, Rong Guo^4,5, Yibo Zhao^4,5, Ziyu Meng^2,4, Zhipei Liang^4,5, and Yao li^2,6
1Radiology department, The Fifth People's Hospital of Shanghai, Shanghai, China, ²Institute for Medical Imaging Technology, School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China, ³Neurosurgery department, The Fifth People's Hospital of Shanghai, Shanghai, China, ⁴Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, United States, ⁵Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, United States, ⁶Med-X Research Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is the most prevalent form of brain injury but the underlying physiological mechanisms are still not fully understood. MRSI has long been recognized as a potentially powerful tool for detection of neurometabolic alterations induced by TBI but most existing studies are limited by low resolution. In this study, we used a 3D high-resolution MRSI technique, known as SPICE, to study neurometabolic alterations in acute mTBI patients. Our experimental results showed various metabolic changes in different areas of patients, which lay a foundation for further investigation to gain new insights into the pathophysiology underlying acute mTBI.

Xiao-Hong Zhu¹, Byeong-Yeul Lee¹, Katherine Ingram², Wei Chen¹, Robert Doss^2,3, and Joseph Petronio^2
1CMRR, Department of Radiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States, ²Children’s Minnesota Neuroscience Institute, St. Paul, MN, United States, ³Department of Neurology, University of Minnesota,, Minneapolis, MN, United States

Abnormal changes in brain metabolism and its role in pediatric concussion have not been well studied. We employed ³¹P MRS technique at 7T to assess the neurometabolic alteration in children with concussion. Phosphorous metabolites concentrations and other key physiological parameters were measured in patient and control cohorts. Metabolic differences between healthy and concussed brains were detected at two time points after the injury. We also found that mild head trauma reduced the age-dependences of high-energy phosphates and NAD contents in the developing brain, and it took much longer than clinically defined “recovery time” to fully restore such relationship.

Teresa Gerhalter¹, Rosemary Peralta¹, Mickael Tordjman¹, Julia Zabludovsky¹, Seena Dehkharghani¹, Alejandro Zarate², Soo-Min Shin³, Ilya Aylyarov³, Tamara Bushnick², Jonathan M. Silver⁴, Stephen P. Wall³, Brian S. Im², Ryan Brown¹, Guillaume Madelin¹, and Ivan I. Kirov^1
1Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States, ²Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States, ³Ronald O. Perelman Department of Emergency Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States, ⁴Department of Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States

In this quantitative sodium MRI study, 24 mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) and 9 controls were scanned at 3 T. Total sodium content (TSC) was calculated in five different subcortical regions, as well as in global grey and white matter. TSC in mTBI did not differ statistically from controls for the examined regions. Patients with findings on conventional ¹H imaging (e.g. lesions, microhemorrhages) did not differ from patients without such findings in their TSC. More patients and controls are being recruited to strengthen the statistical power of these comparisons.

Zheng Tao¹, Du Juan¹, Yuan Yi², Wu Shuo¹, Wang Zhanqiu¹, Liu Defeng¹, Shi Qinglei³, Wang Xiaohan¹, and Liu Lanxiang^1
1MRI, Qinhuangdao Municipal No. 1 Hospital, Qinhuangdao, China, ²Institute of Electrical Engineering, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China, ³Siemens Healthcare, MR Scientific Marketing, Beijing, China

In this study, we verified the feasibility of FA and MD values in evaluating the neuro therapeutic effect of LITUS with rat model. The neuro therapeutic effect of LITUS was attributed to promoting blood flow and the protein expression of BDNF.  

Xuan Vinh To¹ and Fatima A. Nasrallah^1,2
1The Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland, Australia, Queensland, Australia, ²The Centre for Advanced Imaging, The University of Queensland, Australia, St Lucia, Australia

Resting-state functional connectivity in mouse model of concussion detected a process of functional adaptation at day 2 post-injury in compensation for white matter injuries: increased connectivity among the Default Mode and Hippocampal Networks and decreased or negative connectivity to the Midbrain. These adaptations maintained cognition and spatial learning but negatively affected the motor and balance functions. The functional adaptations were short-term: at day 7, increased cellularity were detected by Diffusion MRI in grey matter regions involved with day 2 functional adaptations.

Mihika Gangolli¹, Elizabeth Hutchinson², Ann McKee³, Joong Hee Kim¹, Sinisa Pajevic¹, and Peter Basser^1
1National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, United States, ²BME, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, United States, ³Boston University, Boston, MA, United States

Diffusion tensor and propagator metrics are compared directly in post-mortem cortex specimens from humans with chronic traumatic encephalopathy.  Significant correlation was found between fractional anisotropy and non-Gaussianity with pTau staining in the sulcal depths.  Additionally, GFAP staining of astrocytosis in the white matter was significantly correlated with Trace, FA, return-to-origin probability and propagator anisotropy. Cluster-based methods were also applied to explore the multivariate diffusion signature associated with CTE pathology.  These findings suggest that diffusion metrics may be sensitive to CTE-related pathology.

Sophie Richter¹, Stefan Winzeck¹, Evgenios Kornaropoulos ¹, Marta Correia ², Jan Verheyden³, Thijs Vande Vyvere ³, Guy Williams⁴, David Menon¹, and Virginia Newcombe ^1
1University Division of Anaesthesia, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom, ²MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom, ³Icometrix, Leuven, Belgium, ⁴Wolfson Brain Imaging Center, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major public health problem and is a leading cause of neurodisability. This study demonstrates the dynamic changes that occurs after mTBI as defined using conventional and advanced MRI including diffusion tensor imaging.
 

Xiaowei Zhuang¹, Virendra Mishra¹, Zhengshi Yang¹, Karthik Sreenivasan¹, Sarah J Banks², Lauren Bennett³, Bernick Charles¹, and Dietmar Cordes^1,4
1Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, Cleveland Clinic, Las Vegas, NV, United States, ²Department of Neuroscience, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States, ³Neuroscience Institute, Hoag Hospital, Irvine, CA, United States, ⁴University of Colorado, Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States

Both static and dynamic functional connectivity differences between cognitively impaired and non-impaired active professional fighters were first explored. Significant decreased static functional connections and trend-level increased dynamic functional connections among regions involved in memory and executive functions were found in cognitively impaired fighters, which adds brain functional reorganizations to previously observed structural damages in brain deficits related to repetitive head trauma. We further demonstrated that both static and dynamic functional connectivity were sensitive to cognitive declines in this fighter’s cohort, as both static and dynamic functional features can reliably predict cognitive impairment status in fighters. 

Jyun-Ru Chen¹, Li-Chun Hsieh^2,3,4, Cheng-Yu Chen^2,3,4, and Chia-Feng Lu^1
1Department of Biomedical Imaging and Radiological Sciences, National Yang Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan, ²Department of Medical Imaging, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, ³Department of Radiology, School of Medicine, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan, ⁴Translational Imaging Research Center, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan

Dizziness is one of the frequent post-concussion symptoms, however neuroimaging evidence that supports symptom occurrence was less explored. This study started with the investigation of modulation effects from executive functions on functional connectivity (FC) between brain regions related to dizziness and balance followed by the correlation analysis to identify the imaging biomarker for elucidating the dizziness symptoms after mTBI.