Improvement of auditory hallucinations and reduction of primary auditory area's activation following TMS.

Background: In the present case study, improvement of auditory hallucinations following transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) therapy was investigated with respect to activation changes of the auditory cortices.

Methods: Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), activation of the auditory cortices was assessed prior to and after a 4-week TMS series of the left superior temporal gyrus in a schizophrenic patient with medication-resistant auditory hallucinations.

Results: Hallucinations decreased slightly after the third and profoundly after the fourth week of TMS.

Toward clinical X-ray phase-contrast CT: demonstration of enhanced soft-tissue contrast in human specimen.

Objectives: X-ray computed tomography (CT) using phase contrast can provide images with greatly enhanced soft-tissue contrast in comparison to conventional attenuation-based CT. We report on the first scan of a human specimen recorded with a phase-contrast CT system based on an x-ray grating interferometer and a conventional x-ray tube source. Feasibility and potential applications of preclinical and clinical phase-contrast CT are discussed.

Phase-contrast imaging and tomography at 60 keV using a conventional x-ray tube source.

Phase-contrast imaging at laboratory-based x-ray sources using grating interferometers has been developed over the last few years for x-ray energies of up to 28 keV. Here, we show first phase-contrast projection and tomographic images recorded at significantly higher x-ray energies, produced by an x-ray tube source operated at 100 kV acceleration voltage. We find our measured tomographic phase images in good agreement with tabulated data.

An MRI-compatible surgical robot for precise radiological interventions.

Objective: A variety of medical robots have been developed in recent years. MRI, including MR angiography and morphological imaging, with its excellent soft-tissue contrast is attractive for the development of interventional MRI-guided therapies and operations. This paper presents a telerobotic device for use in CT- and/or MR-guided radiological interventions.

Impairment in basal limbic function in schizophrenia during affect recognition.

Patients with schizophrenia routinely fail to perform affect recognition tasks as accurately as healthy controls. The investigation of performance-related changes in cerebral activation in healthy subjects may facilitate the understanding of adaptation processes to different levels of difficulty and help to interpret the activation changes found in schizophrenic patients. Nine first hospitalized partly remitted schizophrenic patients and 10 healthy controls participated in an fMRI study with a facial affect discrimination and labeling task.