More articles from Adult Brain
- Lateral Asymmetry and Spatial Difference of Iron Deposition in the Substantia Nigra of Patients with Parkinson Disease Measured with Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping
The authors evaluated 24 patients with Parkinson disease and 24 age- and sex-matched healthy controls who underwent 3T MR imaging with a 3D multiecho gradient-echo sequence. On reconstructed quantitative susceptibility maps they measured the susceptibility values in the anterior, middle, and posterior parts of the substantia nigra, the whole substantia nigra, and other deep gray matter structures in both cerebral hemispheres. Susceptibility in the middle part, the posterior part, and the whole substantia nigra was significantly higher in the more and the less affected hemibrains of patients with Parkinson disease than in the healthy controls. Also, susceptibility was significantly higher in the posterior substantia nigra of the more affected hemibrain.
- Mitotic Activity in Glioblastoma Correlates with Estimated Extravascular Extracellular Space Derived from Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MR Imaging
Twenty-eight patients with newly presenting glioblastoma multiforme underwent preoperative conventional imaging and T1 dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI. Parametric maps of the initial area under the contrast agent concentration curve, contrast transfer coefficient, estimate of volume of the extravascular extracellular space, and estimate of blood plasma volume were generated, and the enhancing fraction was calculated. High values of the estimate of volume of the extravascular extracellular space were associated with a fibrillary histologic pattern and increased mitotic activity. This finding is counterintuitive to the standard concept that more proliferative tumors would be more densely packed with cells and have less extracellular space. As the authors point out, this surprising finding requires more investigation to understand whether this relationship will hold, and what the underlying mechanism might be.
- A Spiral Spin-Echo MR Imaging Technique for Improved Flow Artifact Suppression in T1-Weighted Postcontrast Brain Imaging: A Comparison with Cartesian Turbo Spin-Echo
T1-weighted enhanced brain imaging was performed in 24 pediatric patients comparing the reference Cartesian TSE sequence (2 minutes 30 seconds) with a spiral spin-echo sequence (1 minutes 18 seconds) with similar spatial resolution and coverage. In 23/24 cases, spiral spin-echo was scored better than Cartesian TSE for flow artifact reduction and in 21 cases was superior in subjective preference. The authors demonstrate a relatively simple 2D spiral SE approach in T1-weighted postcontrast brain MR imaging that has minimal flow artifacts in comparison with its 2D Cartesian TSE counterpart.
- Giant Intracranial Aneurysms at 7T MRI
Seven giant intracranial aneurysms were evaluated, and 2 aneurysms were available for histopathologic examination. Aneurysm walls were depicted as hypointense in TOF-MRA and SWI sequences with excellent contrast ratios to adjacent brain parenchyma. A triple-layered microstructure of the aneurysm walls was visualized in all aneurysms in TOF-MRA and SWI. This could be related to iron deposition in the wall, and similar findings were seen in 2 available histopathologic specimens. In vivo 7T TOF-MRA and SWI can delineate the aneurysm wall and the triple-layered wall microstructure in giant intracranial aneurysms.

