Purpose: Radio(chemo)therapy (RCT) as part of the standard treatment of glioma patients, inevitably leads to radiation exposure of the tumor-surrounding normal-appearing (NA) tissues. The effect of radiotherapy on the brain microstructure can be assessed by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). The aim of this study was to analyze regional DTI changes of white matter (WM) structures and to determine their dose- and time-dependency.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe acute state of anorexia nervosa (AN) is associated with widespread reductions in cortical gray matter (GM) thickness and white matter (WM) volume, suspected changes in myelin content and elevated levels of the neuronal damage marker neurofilament light (NF-L), but the underlying mechanisms remain largely unclear. To gain a deeper understanding of brain changes in AN, we applied a multimodal approach combining advanced neuroimaging methods with analysis of blood-derived biomarkers. In addition to standard measures of cortical GM thickness and WM volume, we analyzed tissue-specific profiles of brain metabolites using multivoxel proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy, T1 relaxation time as a proxy of myelin content leveraging advanced quantitative MRI methods and serum NF-L concentrations in a sample of 30 female, predominately adolescent patients with AN and 30 age-matched female healthy control participants.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Radio(chemo)therapy is used as a standard treatment for glioma patients. The surrounding normal tissue is inevitably affected by the irradiation. The aim of this longitudinal study was to investigate perfusion alterations in the normal-appearing tissue after proton irradiation and assess the dose sensitivity of the normal tissue perfusion.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Currently, there is an intense debate on variations in intra-cerebral radiosensitivity and relative biological effectiveness (RBE) in proton therapy of primary brain tumours. Here, both effects were retrospectively investigated using late radiation-induced brain injuries (RIBI) observed in follow-up after proton therapy of patients with diagnosed glioma.
Methods: In total, 42 WHO grade 2-3 glioma patients out of a consecutive patient cohort having received (adjuvant) proton radio(chemo)therapy between 2014 and 2017 were eligible for analysis.
Background: Radiotherapy in patients with primary brain tumors may affect hippocampal structure and cause dyscognitive side-effects.
Patients And Methods: Using structural MRI and comprehensive neurocognitive evaluation, we investigated associations between hippocampal structure and memory deficits in 15 patients with WHO grade 3 and grade 4 gliomas receiving standard radio(chemo)therapy.
Results: We did not find changes in hippocampal thickness or cognitive abilities three months after completing radiotherapy.
Radiotherapy is part of the standard treatment of most primary brain tumors. Large clinical target volumes and physical characteristics of photon beams inevitably lead to irradiation of surrounding normal brain tissue. This can cause radiation-induced brain injury.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRadiation-induced late side effects such as cognitive decline and normal tissue complications can severely affect quality of life and outcome in long-term survivors of brain tumors. Proton therapy offers a favorable depth-dose deposition with the potential to spare tumor-surrounding normal tissue, thus potentially reducing such side effects. In this study, we describe a preclinical model to reveal underlying biological mechanisms caused by precise high-dose proton irradiation of a brain subvolume.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Purpose: Radiotherapy is a standard treatment option for high-grade gliomas. Brain atrophy has previously been associated with radiotherapy. The goal of this study was to investigate dose dependent cerebellar atrophy using prospective, longitudinal MR data from adult glioma patients who received radiotherapy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Ataxia Telangiectasia (A-T) is an inherited multisystem disorder with cerebellar neurodegeneration. The relationships between imaging metrics of cerebellar health and neurological function across childhood in A-T are unknown, but may be important for determining timing and impact of therapeutic interventions.
Purpose: To test the hypothesis that abnormalities of cerebellar structure, physiology and cellular health occur in childhood A-T and correlate with neurological disability, we performed multiparametric cerebellar MRI and establish associations with disease status in childhood A-T.
Purpose: To develop a statistical method of combining multimodal MRI (mMRI) of adult glial brain tumours to generate tissue heterogeneity maps that indicate tumour grade and infiltration margins.
Materials And Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of mMRI from patients with histological diagnosis of glioma (n = 25). H Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopic Imaging (MRSI) was used to label regions of "pure" low- or high-grade tumour across image types.
In glioma patients, linac-based photon beam irradiation is a widely applied therapy, which achieves highly conformal target volume coverage, but is also known to cause side-effects to adjacent areas of healthy tissue. Apart from subjective measures, such as quality of life assessment and neurocognitive function tests, objective methods to quantify tissue damage are needed to assess this impact. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a well-established method for brain tumor diagnoses as well as assessing treatment response.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRepetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has been used worldwide to treat depression. However, the exact physiological effects are not well understood. Pathophysiology of depression involves crucial limbic structures (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: This study aims to investigate the role of the mid-anterior cingulate cortex γ-aminobutyric acid levels in chronic nociceptive pain. The molecular mechanisms of pain chronification are not well understood. In fibromyalgia, low mid-anterior cingulate cortex γ-aminobutyric acid was associated with high pain suggesting a role of prefrontal disinhibition.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe purpose of this work was to assess the reproducibility of diffusion imaging, and in particular the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), intra-voxel incoherent motion (IVIM) parameters and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) parameters, across multiple centres using clinically available protocols with limited harmonization between sequences. An ice-water phantom and nine healthy volunteers were scanned across fives centres on eight scanners (four Siemens 1.5T, four Philips 3T).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To investigate whether nonlinear dimensionality reduction improves unsupervised classification of (1) H MRS brain tumor data compared with a linear method.
Methods: In vivo single-voxel (1) H magnetic resonance spectroscopy (55 patients) and (1) H magnetic resonance spectroscopy imaging (MRSI) (29 patients) data were acquired from histopathologically diagnosed gliomas. Data reduction using Laplacian eigenmaps (LE) or independent component analysis (ICA) was followed by k-means clustering or agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC) for unsupervised learning to assess tumor grade and for tissue type segmentation of MRSI data.
Purpose: To decompose 1H MR spectra of glioma patients into normal and abnormal tissue proportions for tumor classification and delineation.
Methods: Anatomical imaging and 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging data have been acquired from 11 grade II and 13 grade IV glioma patients. LCModel was used to decompose the magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging data into normal brain, grade II, and grade IV tissue proportions using a tissue type basis set.
In this study, mean tumor spectra are used as the basis functions in LCModel to create a direct classification tool for short echo time (1)H magnetic resonance spectroscopy of pediatric brain tumors. LCModel is a widely used analysis tool designed to fit a linear combination of individual metabolite spectra to in vivo spectra. Here, we have used LCModel to fit mean spectra and corresponding variability components of childhood cerebellar tumors, as calculated using principal component analysis, and assessed for classification accuracy.
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