Abdulmajeed Alotaibi^1,2,3, Amjad AlTokhis^1,3, Anna Podlasek^1,3, Chris Tench^1,3, Sieun Lee^1,3, Cris Constantinescu^3,4,5, and Rob Dineen^1,3,5
1Clinical Neurosciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom, ²Radiological Sciences, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, ³Precision Imaging Beacon of Excellence, Nottingham, United Kingdom, ⁴Neurology, Cooper University Hospital, Camden, NJ, United States, ⁵NIHR Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre, Nottingham, United Kingdom

Type 2 diabetes is a metabolic disorder associated with subtle microstructural alteration of brain white matter. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has been widely applied to evaluate white matter microstructural pathology in type 2 diabetes; however, DTI has limitations and lacks specificity. Using UK Biobank data, we applied neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging (NODDI) as an alternative advanced diffusion method to overcome DTI limitations. In this study, NODDI showed its potential role in giving a better biophysical characterisation of white matter neuroaxonal pathology in type 2 diabetes compared to DTI. 

Nicholas Vidas-Guscic^1,2, Joëlle van Rijswijk^1,2, Johan Van Audekerke^1,2, Ben Jeurissen^2,3, Stephan Missault^1,2, Dorian Pustina⁴, Haiying Tang⁴, Roger Cachope⁴, Longbin Liu⁴, Celia Dominguez⁴, Ignacio Munoz-Sanjuan⁴, Annemie Van der Linden^1,2, and Marleen Verhoye^1,2
1Bio-Imaging Lab, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium, ²µNEURO Research Centre of Excellence, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium, ³Vision-Lab, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium, ⁴CHDI Management/CHDI Foundation, Princeton, NJ, United States

Huntington’s disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects motor and cognitive abilities. In this study, we present the outcome of a longitudinal multi-shell DWI investigation of the zQ175 HD mouse model using the diffusion tensor, diffusion kurtosis, and fixel-based analysis. This study reveals microstructural deficits at an early stage of the disease that mainly affect the diffusion tensor in corpus callosum and kurtosis in caudate putamen and grey matter, while fiber cross-section is reduced in major fiber bundles. At a late stage, many white matter fiber bundles show deficits that are indicative of differential myelination and potential axonal pathology.   

Caroline Koehler¹, Paul Kuntke¹, Prativa Sahoo², Hannes Wahl¹, Sean C Deoni³, Hagen H. Kitzler¹, and Steffi Dreha-Kulaczewski^2
1Institut for Diagnostic and Interventional Neuroradiology, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, Dresden, Germany, ²Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, University Medicine Göttingen, Goettingen, Germany, ³Advanced Baby Imaging Lab, Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island, Pawtucket, RI, United States

Advanced MRI techniques  bear great potential to explore myelination  in hypomyelinating leukodystrophies such as Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease (PMD) in-vivo.  Quantitative imaging biomarkers which reflect  myelin, its spatial distribution, and  dynamics during brain maturation are not readily available i.e. to monitor natural disease courses.  In a pilot study  including three PMD patients, multi-component relaxation which enables the evaluation of relative myelination by estimating the myelin water fraction (MWF) was  obtained from  56 region of interest (ROI). Determination of ROIs was facilitated by coregistration of the patients data to a pediatric atlas and compared to age matched healthy controls.

Kain Kyle^1,2, Yael Barnett³, Stephen Tisch³, Ben Jonker³, Arkiev D'Souza¹, Jerome Maller⁴, Michael Barnett^1,2, Joel Maamary³, and Chenyu Wang^1,2
1University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia, ²Sydney Neuroimaging Analysis Centre, Sydney, Australia, ³St Vincent's Hospital Sydney, Sydney, Australia, ⁴GE Healthcare Australia, Melbourne, Australia

MRgFUS is a non-invasive procedure for the treatment of tremor, involving the application of high-energy ultrasound waves to ablate tissue in the brain in regions implicated in tremor networks. There is a lack of data on the acute changes outside the ablated region following treatment with MRgFUS. This investigation sought to examine changes in brain volume and diffusion tensor metrics following treatment with MRgFUS.

Gustavo Chau Loo Kung¹, Juliet Knowles², Lijun Ni², John Huguenard², Michelle Monje², and Jennifer McNab^3
1Bioengineering Department, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States, ²Neurology Department, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States, ³Radiology Department, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States

Maladaptive myelination may be related to the increasing frequency of absence seizures. To explore this connection, we performed MRI microstructural measurements in ex vivo mouse brains from the  Scn8amed+/- model of absence epilepsy in two cohorts of mice at two points of their development, both before and after seizures were well established. Our MRI g-ratio results strongly agree with our previous findings based on electron microscopy and show a clear alteration of myelination throughout the anterior portion of the corpus callosum. 

Juan Carlos Quizhpilema¹, Pablo Lecumberri², Marta Vidorreta³, Tamara Laxe⁴, Mikel San Miguel⁵, Javier Díaz⁶, Inmaculada Pagola⁵, Marisol Gómez¹, Ivonne Jericó⁵, and Teresa Cabada^4
1Department of Statistics, Computer Science and Mathematics, UPNA, Pamplona, Spain, ²Movalsys, Pamplona, Spain, ³Siemens Healthineers, Madrid, Spain, ⁴Radiology department, HUN, Pamplona, Spain, ⁵Neurology department, HUN, Pamplona, Spain, ⁶Psychiatry department, HUN, Pamplona, Spain

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by damage to motor neurons. The search for early biomarkers is relevant due to their rapid progression.This study aims to analyze structural and functional measures in a group of newly diagnosed ALS patients, compare them with a group of healthy controls, and evaluate changes longitudinally at a 6-month follow-up.Twenty patients and 15 controls were recruited. The MRI examination included a T1-weighted scan, DTI, rs-fMRI. ALS shows involvement in motor and non-motor areas as shown by DTI in cortical activity in the early phase and in time progression.

Katrina Milbocker¹, Eric Brengel¹, Gillian LeBlanc¹, and Anna Klintsova^1
1Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, NEWARK, DE, United States

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) is an umbrella term used to identify individuals with a history of prenatal alcohol exposure which results in a spectrum of diagnostic disorders. 1 in 20 infants born in the U.S. has been diagnosed with an FASD, creating a major public health crisis. Deficits in corpus callosum myelination resulting from prenatal alcohol exposure have been correlated with impairments to perceptual learning and executive function in adolescents diagnosed with FASD. This study investigates the therapeutic potential of an exercise intervention to ameliorate alcohol-induced damage to corpus callosum myelination in a rodent model of FASD.

Ruitian Song¹, John O. Glass¹, and Wilburn E. Reddick^1
1Diagnostic Imaging, St Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, United States

Myelin water imaging (MWI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was performed at two longitudinal time points, approximately two years apart, during chemotherapy in patients treated for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). DTI metrics correlated with MWF and LWF at time point 1, but the correlations were weaker at time point 2 (TP2). This may be caused by a possible decoupling of the relationship at TP2 as the brain is recovering from the impact of chemotherapy.

Samy Abo Seada¹, Anke W. van der Eerden¹, Agnita Boon², and Juan A. Hernandez-Tamames^1,3
1Department of Radiology and Nuclear medicine, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, Netherlands, ²Department of Neurology, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, Netherlands, ³Department of Imaging Physics, TU Delft, Delft, Netherlands

Differentiating atypical parkinsonism (AP) from idiopathic Parkinson’s disease (PD) remains a challenge in clinical practice. Based on a recent review on differentiating atypical parkinsonisms using MRI, we developed a dedicated MRI protocol including magnetization transfer (MT), quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) for improving diagnosis. Using pilot data from a healthy volunteer, we show how the assessment of important structures (substantia nigra and locus coeruleus) can be improved using a comprehensive combination of MRI techniques.

Jia Yan Shi¹ and Hua Jun Chen^2
1Fujian Medical University Union Hospital, Fuzhou, China, ²Radiology, Fujian Medical University Union Hospital, Fuzhou, China

Our study aim to investigate cerebral microstructural changes in  Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) using diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) for the first time. ALS patients showed  mean kurtosis metrics (MK) reductions in several gray/white matter areas.  The spatial distribution of the regions with reduced  radial kurtosis(RK) was similar to those with decreased MK. No significant  axial kurtosis(AK) difference was found between groups. The correlation analysis revealed significant associations between DKI metrics and clinical assessments. Additionally, several white matter regions showed between-group differences in conventional diffusion metrics; but the spatial extent was smaller than that with reduced DKI metrics.