Journal of neuroimaging : official journal of the American Society of Neuroimaging
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Functional imaging is beginning to outline the brain's functional architecture and mechanisms of recovery from injury. I will review primarily the motor-function literature from normal populations, learning trials, stroke recovery, and rehabilitation with a neural network approach that may prove fruitful in further advancing our understanding of brain plasticity in response to focal lesions. A key consideration in this review will be how the development of distributed motor networks might constrain recovery as a function of the altered connectivity between damaged and nondamaged areas. It will be argued that this connectivity is central to both recovery from injury and response to treatment.
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Functional neuroimaging and electrophysiological studies suggest that dysplastic neural tissue in malformations of cortical development may participate in task performance, and that functional organization can be altered beyond visible lesion boundaries. The aim of this work was to investigate cortical function in a heterogeneous group of patients with malformations of cortical development. ⋯ In accordance with previous reports, our findings indicate that dysplastic neural tissue can be activated during task performance, and that in some patients, extensive functional reorganization occurs, highlighting the importance of functional magnetic resonance imaging in presurgical planning in those patients for whom epilepsy surgery is considered as an option.
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The importance of the site of occlusion and the presence or absence of collaterals on initial angiography in patients with acute ischemic stroke has been recognized. Qureshi recently proposed a scheme that categorizes patients with ischemic stroke based on findings observed on initial angiography. ⋯ Qureshi grading scheme can be effectively used to stratify patients with anterior circulation ischemic stroke undergoing intra-arterial thrombolysis using initial angiographic findings.
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This study aims to assess cerebral metabolites in school-aged autistic patients through proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy. ⋯ This study found a statistically significant increase in myo-inositol and choline in anterior cingulate and left striatum of autistic children compared with controls. In contrast to previous studies, NAA peak area and NAA/Cr and NAA/Cho ratios had no statistically significant decrease in any of the 4 brain regions.
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We attempted to measure DTI parameters of the brainstem pyramidal tract using two approaches, ie, simple ROI and tract-specific analyses. Results obtained for healthy subjects and ALS patients were compared. ⋯ These results suggest, compared with simple ROI analysis, that tract-specific analysis using DTI fiber-tracking is more reliable and sensitive for detecting upper motor neuron pathology in ALS.