Journal of neuroimaging : official journal of the American Society of Neuroimaging
-
Amygdala enlargement (AE) has been reported as an epileptogenic focus in subtypes of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). The purpose of this study was to investigate the clinical, morphological, and pathological characteristics of AE. ⋯ Cortical dysplasia may be one of the pathological diagnoses in AE, and in some patients it may extend to the temporal pole.
-
Comparative Study
Association of developmental venous anomalies with perfusion abnormalities on arterial spin labeling and bolus perfusion-weighted imaging.
To investigate the frequency and characteristics of developmental venous anomaly (DVA)-associated perfusion abnormalities on arterial spin labeling (ASL) and bolus perfusion-weighted imaging (PWI) and discuss their potential causes. ⋯ Perfusion changes with DVAs are common on PWI but uncommon on ASL. PWI findings are expected based on the anatomy and physiology of DVAs and are accentuated by gradient echo acquisition. DVAs with intrinsic ASL signal or signal in draining veins may be associated with arteriovenous shunting (transitional lesions).
-
MRI appearance of subthalamic nucleus (STN) boundaries in Parkinson's patients is often unreliable and not well understood. An objective comparison between FSE T2 and inversion recovery (FSTIR) sequences for stereotactic placement of deep brain stimulators is presented to advance current understanding of STN tissue contrast for refractory Parkinson's disease (PD). ⋯ STN, a common stimulation target, shows an age dependent trend for normalized FSTIR MRI contrast. Although larger patient pools are needed, our work points to tissue relaxation-based changes in STN that may provide insight in early stages of brain pathology involving DBS targets in medically refractory Parkinson's disease.
-
The Circle of Willis (COW) is the main collateral system between the bilateral carotid systems and the posterior circulation. COW normal variants are encountered in up to 62% of subjects. We hypothesize that, in patients with carotid artery stenosis, the presence of COW variants is a risk factor for leukoaraiosis. ⋯ The presence and the number of COW variants are associated with a higher leukoaraiosis volume in patients with significant internal carotid artery stenosis.
-
We tested the validity of a freely available segmentation pipeline to measure compartmental brain volumes from 3T MRI in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). Our primary focus was methodological to explore the effect of segmentation corrections on the clinical relevance of the output metrics. ⋯ We report the validity of a segmentation pipeline for the detection of MS-related brain atrophy with 3T MRI. Longitudinal studies are warranted to extend these results.