A WORLDWIDE ENIGMA STUDY ON EPILEPSY-RELATED GRAY AND WHITE MATTER COMPROMISE ACROSS THE ADULT LIFESPAN.

Objectives: Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is commonly associated with mesiotemporal pathology and widespread alterations of grey and white matter structures. Evidence supports a progressive condition although the temporal evolution of TLE is poorly defined. This ENIGMA-Epilepsy study utilized multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data to investigate structural alterations in TLE patients across the adult lifespan.

Structural network alterations in focal and generalized epilepsy assessed in a worldwide ENIGMA study follow axes of epilepsy risk gene expression.

Epilepsy is associated with genetic risk factors and cortico-subcortical network alterations, but associations between neurobiological mechanisms and macroscale connectomics remain unclear. This multisite ENIGMA-Epilepsy study examined whole-brain structural covariance networks in patients with epilepsy and related findings to postmortem epilepsy risk gene expression patterns. Brain network analysis included 578 adults with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), 288 adults with idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE), and 1328 healthy controls from 18 centres worldwide.

Repeatability and reproducibility of ADC measurements: a prospective multicenter whole-body-MRI study.

Objectives: Multicenter oncology trials increasingly include MRI examinations with apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) quantification for lesion characterization and follow-up. However, the repeatability and reproducibility (R&R) limits above which a true change in ADC can be considered relevant are poorly defined. This study assessed these limits in a standardized whole-body (WB)-MRI protocol.

Network-based atrophy modeling in the common epilepsies: A worldwide ENIGMA study.

Epilepsy is increasingly conceptualized as a network disorder. In this cross-sectional mega-analysis, we integrated neuroimaging and connectome analysis to identify network associations with atrophy patterns in 1021 adults with epilepsy compared to 1564 healthy controls from 19 international sites. In temporal lobe epilepsy, areas of atrophy colocalized with highly interconnected cortical hub regions, whereas idiopathic generalized epilepsy showed preferential subcortical hub involvement.

Sonographic and radiographic evaluation of the extensor tendons in early postoperative period after total knee arthroplasty.

Objective: To prospectively assess the early changes in the quadriceps and patellar tendons before and after total knee arthroplasty using ultrasound, shear wave elastography, and X-rays.

Materials And Methods: Radiographs, ultrasound, and shear wave elastography were performed on 23 patients (16 women; aged 51-85, mean 66 ± 9 years) before and after surgery at 6 weeks and on 11 patients at 3 months. Patellar position and patellar tendon lengths were evaluated by radiography; joint effusion or synovitis, quadriceps and patellar tendon lengths, and thicknesses, echogenicity, vascularity, and stiffness were assessed with ultrasound and shear wave elastography.

The central vein sign in multiple sclerosis patients with vascular comorbidities.

Background: The central vein sign (CVS) is an imaging biomarker able to differentiate multiple sclerosis (MS) from other conditions causing similar appearance lesions on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), including cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD). However, the impact of vascular risk factors (VRFs) for CSVD on the percentage of CVS positive (CVS) lesions in MS has never been evaluated.

Objective: To investigate the association between different VRFs and the percentage of CVS lesions in MS.

Multi-atlas segmentation of the skeleton from whole-body MRI-Impact of iterative background masking.

Purpose: To improve multi-atlas segmentation of the skeleton from whole-body MRI. In particular, we study the effect of employing the atlas segmentations to iteratively mask tissues outside of the region of interest to improve the atlas alignment and subsequent segmentation.

Methods: An improved atlas registration scheme is proposed.

Assessment of cardiac-driven liver movements with filtered harmonic phase image representation, optical flow quantification, and motion amplification.

Purpose: To characterize cardiac-driven liver movements using a harmonic phase image representation (HARP) with an optical flow quantification and motion amplification method. The method was applied to define the cardiac trigger delay providing minimal signal losses in liver DWI images.

Methods: The 16-s breath-hold balanced-SSFP time resolved 20 images/s were acquired at 3T in coronal and sagittal orientations.

Value of dual-energy CT angiography in patients with treated intracranial aneurysms.

Purpose: To evaluate the ability of dual-energy CT angiography (DECTA) in metal artifact reduction in patients with treated intracranial aneurysms by comparing DECTA-based virtual monoenergetic extrapolations (VMEs) and mixed images (MI).

Methods: Thirty-five patients underwent prospectively a dual-source DECTA (Somatom Force, Siemens Medical Solutions, Forchheim, Germany) after aneurysm repair. A total number of 40 aneurysms (23 treated by coil embolization and 17 treated by surgical clipping) were analyzed.

Assessment of response to chemotherapy in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma: Comparison between diffusion-weighted MR quantitative parameters and RECIST.

Purpose: To prospectively assess chemotherapy-induced changes in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) with diffusion-weighted (DW)-MR quantitative metrics, including apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) and histogram-derived parameters, compared with RECIST 1.1.

Methods: 24 patients underwent DW-MR at baseline, week-2 and week-8 after chemotherapy initiation.

Structural brain abnormalities in the common epilepsies assessed in a worldwide ENIGMA study.

Progressive functional decline in the epilepsies is largely unexplained. We formed the ENIGMA-Epilepsy consortium to understand factors that influence brain measures in epilepsy, pooling data from 24 research centres in 14 countries across Europe, North and South America, Asia, and Australia. Structural brain measures were extracted from MRI brain scans across 2149 individuals with epilepsy, divided into four epilepsy subgroups including idiopathic generalized epilepsies (n =367), mesial temporal lobe epilepsies with hippocampal sclerosis (MTLE; left, n = 415; right, n = 339), and all other epilepsies in aggregate (n = 1026), and compared to 1727 matched healthy controls.

Absence of clinical cerebellar syndrome after serial injections of more than 20 doses of gadoterate, a macrocyclic GBCA: a monocenter retrospective study.

Sound evidence of gadolinium accumulation in brain has been recently provided after repeated administrations of linear gadolinium-based contrast agents (GBCAs), especially at the cerebellum level. Although data regarding brain accumulation of macrocyclic GBCAs are more reassuring, there is now a genuine concern ("gadolinium-phobia") about possible long-term consequences of gadolinium deposits, especially in terms of cerebellar sequelae. We, therefore, questioned about the clinical impact of serial administration of gadoterate meglumine, a macrocyclic GBCA.

Neural correlates of correct and failed response inhibition in heavy versus light social drinkers: an fMRI study during a go/no-go task by healthy participants.

The ability to suppress responses that are inappropriate, as well as the mechanisms monitoring the accuracy of actions in order to compensate for errors, is central to human behavior. Neural alterations that prevent stopping an inaccurate response, combined with a decreased ability of error monitoring, are considered to be prominent features of alcohol abuse. Moreover, (i) alterations of these processes have been reported in heavy social drinkers (i.

Added value of diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging for the detection of pancreatic fluid collection infection.

Objectives: To investigate the added value of diffusion-weighted (DW) magnetic resonance (MR) imaging in the detection of infection in pancreatic fluid collections (PFC).

Methods: Forty-patients with PFC requiring endoscopic-transmural drainage underwent conventional-MR and DW-MR imaging (b = 1000 s/mm) before endoscopy. MR images were divided into two sets (set1, conventional-MR; set2, conventional-MR, DW-MR and ADC maps) and randomized.

Quantifying brain volumes for Multiple Sclerosis patients follow-up in clinical practice - comparison of 1.5 and 3 Tesla magnetic resonance imaging.

Introduction: There is emerging evidence that brain atrophy is a part of the pathophysiology of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and correlates with several clinical outcomes of the disease, both physical and cognitive. Consequently, brain atrophy is becoming an important parameter in patients' follow-up. Since in clinical practice both 1.

Liver apparent diffusion coefficient repeatability with individually predetermined optimal cardiac timing and artifact elimination by signal filtering.

Purpose: To prospectively assess liver ADC (apparent diffusion coefficient) repeatability from cardiac-triggered diffusion-weighted images obtained with an individually predetermined optimal cardiac time window minimizing cardiac-related effects and to evaluate a signal filtering method aimed at artifact elimination.

Materials And Methods: After Institutional Review Board approval and written informed consent, eight healthy volunteers underwent four repetitions of respiratory-triggered diffusion-weighted sequences (3T, b: 0,150,500 s/mm(2) ) without (RTnoCT, 51 sec) and with individually optimized cardiac triggering (RTCT, 306 sec). The optimal cardiac delay was individually predetermined using a 5-second breath-hold sequence.

Focal liver lesions detection: Comparison of respiratory-triggering, triggering and tracking navigator and tracking-only navigator in diffusion-weighted imaging.

Purpose: To compare low b value (10s/mm(2)) spin-echo echo-planar (SE-EP) diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) acquired with respiratory-triggering (RT), triggering and tracking navigator (TT), tracking only navigator (TRON) techniques for image quality and focal liver lesions (FLL) detection in non-cirrhotic patients.

Material And Methods: This bi-centric study was approved by the institutional review boards; informed consent was obtained. Eighty-three patients were prospectively included and SE-EP-DWI with RT, TT and TRON techniques were performed.

Endometriosis: contribution of 3.0-T pelvic MR imaging in preoperative assessment--initial results.

Purpose: To determine the accuracy of 3.0-T pelvic magnetic resonance (MR) imaging in the preoperative assessment of endometriosis and to evaluate colon wall involvement after intrarectal gel administration.

Materials And Methods: Institutional review board approval for this study was obtained, and each patient gave written informed consent.