Journal of neuroimaging : official journal of the American Society of Neuroimaging
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Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is characterized by extensive corticospinal damage, but extrapyramidal involvement is suggested in pathological studies. Texture analysis (TA) is an image processing technique that evaluates the distribution of gray levels between pixels in a given region of interest (ROI). It provides quantitative data and has been employed in several neurodegenerative disorders. Here, we used TA to investigate possible deep gray nuclei (DGN) abnormalities in a cohort of ALS patients. ⋯ TA of T1 weighted images revealed DGN alterations in patients with ALS, namely in the thalami and caudate nuclei.
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Comparative Study
Terson's Syndrome: Diagnostic Comparison of Ocular Sonography and CT.
To assess the accuracy of ocular B-mode sonography and of standard head computed tomography (CT) as screening tools for intraocular hemorrhages related to subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). ⋯ Ocular sonography identifies SAH-related preretinal and vitreous hemorrhages with high accuracy and is superior to standard head CT. It may be considered as new and useful bedside diagnostic tool for routine clinical care of patients with SAH.
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Brain lesions converting to chronic T1 hypointensities ("chronic black holes" [CBH]), indicate severe tissue destruction (axonal loss and irreversible demyelination) in multiple sclerosis (MS). Two mechanisms by which fingolimod could limit MS lesion evolution include sequestration of lymphocytes in the periphery or direct neuroprotective effects. We investigated the effect of fingolimod on the evolution of acute gadolinium-enhancing (Gd+) brain lesions to CBH in patients with MS. ⋯ This pilot study shows a trend of fingolimod on reducing the conversion rate from acute to chronic destructive MS lesions. Such an effect awaits verification in larger randomized prospective studies.
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Early-onset Alzheimer's disease (EOAD) is frequently associated with atypical clinical presentations and its early detection remains a challenging issue. In this study, we used arterial spin labeling (ASL), a noninvasive perfusion MRI sequence, and [(18)F]-FDG-PET to detect the perfusion and metabolic features in patients with EOAD. ⋯ ASL and [(18)F]-FDG-PET detected pathological areas of similar distribution mainly located in the inferior parietal lobules and local zones in the temporal cortex in patients with EOAD. Our preliminary study showed that ASL and [(18)F]-FDG-PET may have a complementary role in combination with structural MRI for the assessment of suspected EOAD.
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To evaluate whether breath-holding (BH) blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI can quantify differences in vascular reactivity (VR), as there is a need for improved contrast mechanisms in gliomas. ⋯ BH maps based on peak-to-trough can be used to characterize VR in brain tumors. VR maps in brain tumor patients appear to be caused by a different mechanism than gadolinium enhancement.