jian he¹, Jing Xu¹, and Minjie Lu^1
1fuwai hospital, Beijing, China

In this well-defined cohort of prospectively studied 101 obese Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), 46 normal-weight HFpEF patients and 30 clinically healthy controls, we illustrated clinical features of obese HFpEF phenotype with more remarkable inflammation response, and cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) derived left ventricular remodeling and worse subtle dysfunction, compared to normal-weight HFpEF and clinically healthy controls. In addition, diastolic dysfunction (impaired EGLSR, EGCSR, and EGRSR) and subtle systolic dysfunction were more prominent characteristics of obese HFpEF patients, showed modest to moderate correlations with body mass and estimated plasma volume, and assisted in the diagnosis of obese HFpEF.

Rui-Ying Li¹, Deng-Ling Zhao¹, and Xian-Ce Zhao^2
1Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Molecular and Functional Imaging, Department of Radiology, Zhongda Hospital, Medical School, Southeast University, Nanjing, China, ²Philips Healthcare, Shanghai, China

Atherosclerosis accompanied by inflammation is considered to be a crucial mechanism for patients with ischemic stroke. We aimed to investigate the association between intracranial plaque characteristics and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) levels to predict the occurrence of acute cerebral infarction (ACI). 85 patients with cerebral infarction were divided into ACI group and non-acute cerebral infarction (NACI) group. Hs-CRP levels were further grouped into low, intermediate and high groups. We concluded that elevated hs-CRP levels was independently associated with strong plaque enhancement, their synergistic effects provided incremental value in predicting the occurrence of acute cerebral infarction.

Jiali Zhong¹, Yongquan Ye², Hongyu Yang¹, Zhongqi Zhang², Jingyuan Lyu², Weijun Zhang³, Jian Xu², and Ruchen Peng^1
1Radiology, Beijing Luhe Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China, ²UIH America, Inc., Houston, TX, United States, ³United Imaging Healthcare Co., Ltd., Shanghai, China

A state-of-the-art multi-parametric imaging method, namely MULTIPLEX, was evaluated for its potential for cerebral infarction. The MULTIPLEX method offered single-scan multi-contrast information with 3D high resolution images, not only showing the capacity to supplement or  replace routine protocols for anatomical and edema imaging, but also offered additional information on bleedings and penumbra, showing the potential as an one-click solution for daily cerebral infarction imaging.

Kun Li¹, Dongtao Liu², Xiuqin Jia¹, Qiao Bu¹, Rui Jia¹, Tao Jiang¹, Yueluan Jiang³, Qinglei Shi³, Zhenyu Pan¹, and Lichun Zhou^2
1Department of Radiology, Beijing Chao Yang Hospital, Beijing, China, ²Department of Neurology, Beijing Chao Yang Hospital, Beijing, China, ³MR Scientific Marketing, Siemens Healthineers, Beijing, China

Major depressive disorder severity is associated with limbic systems grey matter volumetric reductions, while for cerebral small vascular disease (CSVD) patients with mild to moderate depression the pathological mechanism needs to be future investigated. Diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) is an advanced diffusion model that characterizes water diffusion process as non-Gaussian distribution. DKI parameters are highly sensitive to the micro-environment of tissues, especially for the anisotropic structure. This study aimed to investigate the structure changes of limbic systems in patients with cerebral small vascular disease (CSVD) induced mild to moderate depression by applying diffusion kurtosis imaging.

Jingtong Xiong¹, Xiaofeng Qu¹, Jie Bian¹, Jianlin Wu², and Chen Zhang^3
1Radiology, The Second Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China, ²Radiology, Affiliated Zhongshan Hospital of Dalian University, Dalian, China, ³MR Scientific Marketing, Siemens Healthineers, Beijing, China

This study explores the feasibility of MR 3D T1 SPACE sequence in diagnose and differential diagnosis of Cerebral sinus venous thrombosis (CSVT) . The clinical phase of CVST in accordance with onset of symptom often lags behind image characters. Results showed that no obvious scientific difference was found among clinical phase groups. However, the differences between the acute, subacute and chronic imaging groups were statistically significant. Besides, CE rate of CVST in superficial veins was found higher than that in deep veins. MR 3D T1 SPACE has the potential to improve the accuracy of early diagnosis of CVST.

Tong Han¹, Yutian Li¹, Hui Wang¹, Jinli Li¹, and Xianchang Zhang^2
1Department of Radiology, Tianjin Huanhu Hospital, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China, ²MR Collaboration, Siemens Healthineers Ltd., Beijing, China

This study used high resolution vessel wall imaging to investigate the lenticulostriate artery (LSA) morphology and plaque characteristics in three patient groups: single small subcortical infarction (SSI) with/without plaque on the parental artery, and large subcortical infarction with large artery atherosclerosis (LAA) as reference. SSI with plaque (SUD) on the parental artery manifested more like LAA, having relatively lower total CSVD score and lower number and total length of LSA branches. However, the plaques in SUD were mainly positive remodeling. These findings reinforce our understanding about the etiology of SSI with plaque on the parental artery.  

Miao Yu¹, Yankai Meng¹, Beiru Wang¹, Yaqiong Ge², and Kai Xu^1
1the Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, China, ²GE Healthcare，Precision health institution，China., Shanghai, China

 Inflammation  play important roles in the vulnerability of atherosclerotic plaque. Pericoronary fat is associated with coronary heart disease and high-risk plaque, however the value of pericarotid fat density (PFD) remains uncertain. We evaluated the association between PFD on computed tomography angiography (CTA), with the vulnerable composition of carotid plaques. We found that the PFD was independently associated with vulnerability of carotid plaque especially for IPH and TRFC, suggesting that pericarotid fat tissue may play a key role in the occurrence of vulnerable plaques. The identification of local perivascular inflammation may help identify patients who may benefit from targeted therapy.

Runyu Yang¹, yuze li¹, and Huijun Chen^1
1Center for Biomedical Imaging Research, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

The rupture of intracranial atherosclerotic plaque is a major cause of ischemic stroke. The atherosclerotic plaque burden was proposed to measure the risk of plaque vulnerability, which can be quantified by the volume of the vessel wall calculated on MR images. However, due to the complex shape of intracranial blood vessels, the traditional calculation method may reduce the accuracy of plaque burden measurement,especially overlapped in the curved vessels. Therefore, a tetrahedral based method was proposed to reduce the volume calculation error of intracranial vessel wall. The proposed method was validated in simulation and in-vivo datasets.

Jianjian Zhang¹, Xiao Li¹, Chengcheng Zhu², and Huilin Zhao^1
1Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, shanghai, China, ²University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States

Both aneurysm wall enhancement (AWE) and irregular pulsation have been suggested as potential candidates for intracranial aneurysms (IAs) instability. No studies have explored the association between AWE and irregular pulsation. By using vessel wall MRI and four-dimensional computed tomography angiography, we found a significantly strong correlation between AWE and irregular pulsation (phi coefficient=0.569, p<0.001). IAs with irregular pulsation had much less AWE grade 0 and more AWE grade 1, 2 and 3 compared with IAs without irregular pulsation (all p<0.05). Further longitudinal studies are needed to validate the role of the two imaging markers in predicting aneurysm growth and rupture.

Yujie Lu^1,2, Wenmei Li¹, and Huiting Zhang^3
1Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, China, ²Radiology, ,Sichuan Cancer Hospital and Institute, Chengdu, China, ³Siemens Healthcare, Beijing, China

Results of our study showed that the level of plasma brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) was positively correlated with cognitive function, and negatively correlated the changes in local brain network related to the destruction of motor and non-motor cortical areas in the hemispheres using rs-fMRI in capsular stroke (CS) group. Follow-up results demonstrated the mechanism of local dynamic network remodeling and its correlation with plasma BDNF concentration and clinical outcomes. It provides temporal and spatial information for the dynamic separation of brain networks in different stage of CS, and reflects the potential biological mechanism of proportional recovery.

guangzong su¹, yang wu¹, xiaojing ma¹, dongsi shuang¹, ting peng¹, haixia li², and peng sun^3
1Wuhan Asia general Hospital, WuHan HUBEI, China, ²Philips Healthcare,wuhan, WuHan HUBEI, China, ³Philips Healthcare,Beijing, Beijing, China

Compressed sensing (CS) is a novel magnetic resonance imaging technique to accelerate scanning under the premise of ensuring image quality. Whole-heart coronary MRA with CS technique can assess coronary artery lesions. However, the image quality is still sensitive to many factors. In this study, we demonstrated that there were statistical differences in parts of image quality with different scan orders when using CS AF of 6, where the scanning at the late stage of examinations showed high image quality. It might be the optimal choice to start coronary MRA scanning later in cardiac MRI practice.

Sirui Li¹, Mengqi Tu¹, Dan Xu¹, Shihong Han², Shuheng Zhang², Wenbo Sun¹, Jinchao Chen³, Haibo Xu¹, and Jianjian Zhang^3
1Department of Radiology, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China, ²United Imaging Healthcare, Shanghai, China, ³Department of Neurosurgery, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

In this study, a 5.0T whole body MR imaging system was used for the evaluation of moyamoya disease (MMD). Diagnostic performance of time-of-flight magnetic resonance angiography (TOF-MRA) and susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI) were evaluated and compared between the 5T MRI scanner and a clinical 3T MRI scanner in three MMD patients. Preliminary results show that 5 T MRI might be superior to 3T MRI for the visualization of small collateral branches and micro bleeding points.

Yuguang Meng¹ and Xiaodong Zhang^1,2
1Yerkes Imaging Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States, ²Division of Neuropharmacology and Neurologic Diseases, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory Univeristy, Atlanta, GA, United States

      Conventional diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has been widely used to examine white matter connectivity with neurological diseases but is limited in detecting pathways with crossing fibers. As the crossing fibers are abundant in large and complicated brains like human and non-human primate brains, the DTI tractography results may be biased substantially. In stroke research, the integrity of corticospinal tract (CST) plays a critical role in assessing the motor function. In this study, a compressed sensing technique was explored to improve the CST delineation with conventional DTI, and the feasibility was evaluated by using a monkey model of stroke.

Yuzhuo Gu¹, Zongyang Li¹, Weiqiong Ma^2,3, Guanxun Cheng⁴, Liwen Wan¹, Lei Zhang¹, Yongming Dai⁵, Ye Li¹, Dong Liang¹, Xin Liu¹, Hairong Zheng¹, and Na Zhang^1
1Paul C. Lauterbur Research Center for Biomedical Imaging, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China, ²Department of Radiology, Huizhou Central People's Hospital, Huizhou, China, ³Department of Radiology, Guangdong Second Provincial General Hospital, Guangzhou, China, ⁴Department of Radiology, Peking University Shenzhen Hospital, Shenzhen, China, ⁵United Imaging Healthcare, Shanghai, China

High resolution magnetic resonance vessel wall imaging (MRVWI) is now widely used for the risk evaluation of patients with ischemic stroke. The use of MRVWI with and without contrast agent is a diagnostic criterion from expert consensus recommendations. However, patients with renal insufficiency who receive gadolinium-based contrast agents are at risk for developing a debilitating and potentially fatal disease known as nephrogenic systemic fibrosis. The study proposes a method based on adversarial generation network to obtain enhanced MR vessel wall image without using contrast agent. The results show the enhancement effect is consistent with the contrast-enhanced MRVWI images.