Dinesh K Deelchand¹, J. Riley McCarten^2,3, Laura Hemmy^2,4, Edward Auerbach¹, Lynn Eberly⁵, and Małgorzata Marjańska^1
1Radiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States, ²Geriatric Research, Veterans Affairs Health Care System, Minneapolis, MN, United States, ³Department of Neurology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States, ⁴University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States, ⁵Division of Biostatistics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States

The goals of this study were to investigate the effect of alcohol usage on scyllo-inositol (sIns) in young and older healthy adults, and measure the T₂ of sIns in young and older healthy adults. Two brain regions (occipital cortex (OCC), posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)) were studied at 3T. sIns was measured using a short-echo-time STEAM while T₂ was measured using LASER. sIns in OCC and PCC regions was found to increase as the brain ages; alcohol usage (0-2 drinks/week) was significantly different between age groups. In addition, there seems to be a trend towards lower T₂ of sIns with age.

Brittany Intzandt^1,2,3,4, Safa Sanami^2,4,5, Julia Huck^4,5, Rick D Hoge⁶, PREVENT-AD Research Group⁷, Louis Bherer ^2,3,8, and Claudine J Gauthier^2,4,5
1School of Graduate Studies, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada, ²Centre EPIC, Montreal Heart Institute, Montreal, QC, Canada, ³Centre de Recherche de l’Institut Universitaire de Geriatrie de Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada, ⁴PERFORM Centre, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada, ⁵Department of Physics, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada, ⁶Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada, ⁷StoP-AD Centre, Douglas Mental Health Institute Research Centre, Montreal, QC, Canada, ⁸Department of Medicine, University of Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada

Cerebral health declines in aging. Obesity is reported to accentuate, reduce or have no effect on these declines. Given sex differences are present for cerebral health and obesity individually, it is hypothesized these discrepancies are influenced by sex. Here, we investigated the relationship between obesity, cerebral structure and perfusion in aging females and males separately. Females revealed greater obesity was associated with increased structure and perfusion. Males demonstrated a positive relationship with obesity and perfusion, however, an inverse association was identified between structure and obesity. Future work should investigate the influence of other lifestyle factors on these sex-specific relationships

Kirsten Mary Lynch¹, Rachel Custer¹, Ryan P Cabeen¹, Francesca Sibilia¹, Arthur W Toga¹, and Jeiran Choupan^1
1USC Mark and Mary Stevens Institute for Neuroimaging and Informatics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Perivascular spaces (PVS) play a critical role in fluid transfer and waste clearance in the brain. PVS enlargement is associated with advancing age; however, the functional correlates of these changes are not well understood. Using multi-compartment diffusion models, we assessed the diffusion properties within the PVS and the surrounding parenchyma in a healthy aging cohort. We found age was significantly associated with increased perivascular free water content and reduced parenchymal free water content. These findings provide preliminary evidence of age-related changes to perivascular fluid transfer that may be indicative of waste clearance functional alterations.  

Rakshit Dadarwal^1,2, Judith Mylius¹, Amir Moussavi¹, and Susann Boretius^1,2
1Functional Imaging Laboratory, German Primate Center, Göttingen, Germany, ²Georg-August-University Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

Aging of the brain has been associated with several structural and functional changes, including tissue volume loss, white matter integrity loss, and changes in iron concentration. However, the fundamental mechanism driving these changes and their significance in the development of age-related neurodegenerative diseases are still not very well understood. Due to their unequivocal similarity with humans, non-human primates may be of particular value to further explore these mechanisms. In this study, we looked at age-related morphological, tissue microstructural, and iron-concentration changes in the corpus callosum of macaques and marmosets.  

Sai Man Cheung¹, Kwok-Shing Chan^1,2, Wenshu Zhou¹, Ehab Husain³, Tanja Gagliardi^1,4, Yazan Masannat⁵, and Jiabao He^1
1Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, United Kingdom, ²Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands, ³Pathology Department, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Aberdeen, United Kingdom, ⁴Radiology Department, Royal Marsden Hospital, London, United Kingdom, ⁵Breast Unit, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Aberdeen, United Kingdom

Early diagnosis is crucial for the prognosis of patients with breast cancer. Postmenopausal women with oestrogen receptor positive cancer account for over half of all new diagnosis, with an imbalance of lipid composition in peri-tumoural adipose tissue. Since oestrogen is primarily modulated by mammary adipocytes, lipid composition monitoring for early sign of heterogeneous lipid deregulation is central to the accurate early detection. Novel chemical shift-encoded imaging (CSEI) allows rapid lipid mapping of whole breast. We set out to elucidate the spatial distribution in the deregulation of peri-tumoural lipid composition in postmenopausal patients with oestrogen receptor positive breast cancer using CSEI.

Ileana Jelescu¹, Federica Ribaldi², Konstantin Toussas³, Sandra da Costa⁴, Joao Jorge⁴, Olivier Reynaud ⁴, Giovanni B Frisoni³, Jorge Jovicich⁵, and Michela Pievani^6
1CHUV, Lausanne, Switzerland, ²UNIGE, Geneve, Switzerland, ³UNIGE, Geneva, Switzerland, ⁴EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland, ⁵CIMEC, Trento, Italy, ⁶IRCCS Brescia, Brescia, Italy

The locus coeruleus (LC) is a brainstem nucleus thought to undergo early microstructural and functional connectivity changes in Alzheimer’s disease. The in vivo assessment of LC changes is however limited by the resolution of current 3T MRI systems. Here we used high-resolution high-field diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) and resting-state fMRI in cognitively impaired older persons to investigate diffusion and functional connectivity LC changes, and their association with cognition and connectivity of large-scale networks. Results show reduced diffusivity in the caudal LC and associations between microstructural changes, memory deficits, and lower functional connectivity of the dorsal and ventral attention networks.

Wei-Ching Lo¹, John Conklin^2,3, Bryan Clifford¹, Qiyuan Tian^2,3, Daniel Polak^2,4, Daniel Nicolas Splitthoff⁴, ‪Maria Gabriela Figueiro Longo‬^2,3, Azadeh Tabari^2,3, Stephen Cauley^2,3, and Susie Yi Huang^2,3,5
1Siemens Medical Solutions, Boston, MA, United States, ²Department of Radiology, A. A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States, ³Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States, ⁴Siemens Healthcare GmbH, Erlangen, Germany, ⁵Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States

Scout Accelerated Motion Estimation and Reduction (SAMER) is a novel technique that can mitigate motion artifacts in MR images. In this study, we compared the brain volume and cortical thickness measurements obtained from in vivo motion-free, motion corrupted, and motion corrected images acquired with SAMER to those from a motion-free standard MPRAGE reference scan. The quantitative analysis of motion-free and motion corrected SAMER images showed comparable results with motion-free standard MPRAGE.