Publications by authors named "Cynthia Anckaerts"
Article Synopsis
- * It introduces StandardRat, a standardized fMRI acquisition protocol for rats that has been tested across 20 research centers to enhance data integration.
- * The standardized protocol and processing pipeline improve the reliability of detecting functional connectivity patterns and are made publicly available to foster collaboration in the neuroimaging field.
Article Synopsis
- Premenopausal bilateral ovariectomy is linked to a higher risk of Alzheimer's disease, but the reasons behind this connection are not fully understood.
- In a study using rodent models of Alzheimer's, it was found that ovariectomized transgenic mice exhibited changes like increased hypothalamic energy metabolism and reduced brain connectivity compared to their sham-operated counterparts.
- The research showed that both the genetic type of the mice and the ovariectomy procedure influenced brain imaging markers related to Alzheimer's, but no significant interaction between the type of surgery and genotype was found regarding specific protein levels linked to the disease.
Preclinical applications of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) offer the possibility to non-invasively probe whole-brain network dynamics and to investigate the determinants of altered network signatures observed in human studies. Mouse rsfMRI has been increasingly adopted by numerous laboratories worldwide. Here we describe a multi-centre comparison of 17 mouse rsfMRI datasets via a common image processing and analysis pipeline.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Immune activation during pregnancy is an important risk factor for schizophrenia. Brain dysconnectivity and NMDA receptor (NMDAR) hypofunction have been postulated to be central to schizophrenia pathophysiology. The aim of this study was to investigate resting-state functional connectivity (resting-state functional MRI-rsfMRI), microstructure (diffusion tension imaging-DTI) and response to NMDAR antagonist (pharmacological fMRI-phMRI) using multimodal MRI in offspring of pregnant dams exposed to immune challenge (maternal immune activation-MIA model), and determine whether these neuroimaging readouts correlate with schizophrenia-related behaviour.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe development and characterization of new improved animal models is pivotal in Alzheimer's Disease (AD) research, since valid models enable the identification of early pathological processes, which are often not accessible in patients, as well as subsequent target discovery and evaluation. The TgF344-AD rat model of AD, bearing mutant human amyloid precursor protein (APPswe) and Presenilin 1 (PSEN1ΔE9) genes, has been described to manifest the full spectrum of AD pathology similar to human AD, i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA large proportion of the population suffers from endocrine disruption, e.g., menopausal women, which might result in accelerated aging and a higher risk for developing cognitive disorders.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere is currently a lack of prognostic biomarkers to predict the different sequelae following traumatic brain injury (TBI). The present study investigated the hypothesis that subacute neuroinflammation and microstructural changes correlate with chronic TBI deficits. Rats were subjected to controlled cortical impact (CCI) injury, sham surgery, or skin incision (naïve).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: In Alzheimer's disease (AD), pathologic amyloid-beta (Aβ) is synaptotoxic and impairs neuronal function at the microscale, influencing brain networks at the macroscale before Aβ deposition. The latter can be detected noninvasively, in vivo, using resting-state functional MRI (rsfMRI), a technique used to assess brain functional connectivity (FC).
Methods: RsfMRI was performed longitudinally in TG2576 and PDAPP mice, starting before Aβ deposition to determine the earliest FC changes.