Publications by authors named "Konyer N"

Although hyperpolarized (HP) Xe ventilation MRI can be carried out within a breath hold, it is still challenging for many sick patients. Compressed sensing (CS) is a viable alternative to accelerate this approach. However, undersampled images with identical sampling ratios differ from one another.

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Purpose To determine if proton (H) MRI-derived specific ventilation is responsive to bronchodilator (BD) therapy and associated with clinical biomarkers of type 2 airway inflammation and airways dysfunction in severe asthma. Materials and Methods In this prospective study, 27 participants with severe asthma (mean age, 52 years ± 9 [SD]; 17 female, 10 male) and seven healthy controls (mean age, 47 years ± 16; five female, two male), recruited between 2018 and 2021, underwent same-day spirometry, respiratory oscillometry, and tidal breathing H MRI. Participants with severe asthma underwent all assessments before and after BD therapy, and type 2 airway inflammatory biomarkers were determined (blood eosinophil count, sputum eosinophil percentage, sputum eosinophil-free granules, and fraction of exhaled nitric oxide) to generate a cumulative type 2 biomarker score.

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The ideal contrast agents for ventilation SPECT and MRI are Technegas and Xe gas, respectively. Despite increasing interest in the clinical utility of ventilation imaging, these modalities have not been directly compared. Therefore, our objective was to compare the ventilation defect percent (VDP) assessed by Technegas SPECT and hyperpolarized Xe MRI in patients scheduled to undergo lung cancer resection with and without pre-existing obstructive lung disease.

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Background: Patients often report persistent symptoms beyond the acute infectious phase of COVID-19. Hyperpolarised Xe MRI provides a way to directly measure airway functional abnormalities; the clinical relevance of Xe MRI ventilation defects in ever-hospitalised and never-hospitalised patients who had COVID-19 has not been ascertained. It remains unclear if persistent symptoms beyond the infectious phase are related to small airways disease and ventilation heterogeneity.

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Childhood obesity is a growing worldwide problem. In adults, lower cold-induced brown adipose tissue (BAT) activity is linked to obesity and metabolic dysfunction; this relationship remains uncertain in children. In this cross-sectional study, we compared cold-induced supraclavicular (SCV) BAT activity (percent change in proton density fat fraction [PDFF]) within the SCV region after 1 h of whole-body cold exposure (18°C), using MRI in 26 boys aged 8-10 years: 13 with normal BMI and 13 with overweight/obesity.

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In rodents, lower brown adipose tissue (BAT) activity is associated with greater liver steatosis and changes in the gut microbiome. However, little is known about these relationships in humans. In adults (n = 60), we assessed hepatic fat and cold-stimulated BAT activity using magnetic resonance imaging and the gut microbiota with 16S sequencing.

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Rationale And Objectives: Xe MRI has been developed to noninvasively visualize and quantify the functional consequence of airway obstruction in asthma. Its widespread application requires evidence of intersite reproducibility and agreement. Our objective was to evaluate reproducibility and agreement of Xe ventilation MRI measurements in severe asthmatics at two sites.

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Context: In rodents, cold exposure induces the activation of brown adipose tissue (BAT) and the induction of intracellular triacylglycerol (TAG) lipolysis. However, in humans, the kinetics of supraclavicular (SCV) BAT activation and the potential importance of TAG stores remain poorly defined.

Objective: To determine the time course of BAT activation and changes in intracellular TAG using MRI assessment of the SCV ( BAT depot) and fat in the posterior neck region ( non-BAT).

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The activation of brown adipose tissue (BAT) is associated with reductions in circulating lipids and glucose in rodents and contributes to energy expenditure in humans indicating the potential therapeutic importance of targetting this tissue for the treatment of a variety of metabolic disorders. In order to evaluate the therapeutic potential of human BAT, a variety of methodologies for assessing the volume and metabolic activity of BAT are utilized. Cold exposure is often utilized to increase BAT activity but inconsistencies in the characteristics of the exposure protocols make it challenging to compare findings.

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Premature birth in conjunction with extremely low birth weight (<1 kg, ELBW) is associated with insulin resistance and increased cardiometabolic health risk compared to birth at full term with normal birth weight (NBW). However, little is known regarding the biologic mediators of these effects. Abdominal and ectopic lipid accumulation is linked to insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction, yet whether ELBW survivors are predisposed to aberrant lipid deposition in adulthood is unknown.

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Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a noninvasive imaging modality that uses radio frequency (RF) energy to excite nuclei in the presence of a strong magnetic field and linear spatially encoding magnetic field gradients. Clinically, MRI takes advantage of the spin properties of hydrogen (1H) nuclei due to the high concentration and relative abundance in tissue water and fats. However, other nuclei having the quantum mechanical property of spin can also be probed.

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Objective: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic neurodegenerative disease of the CNS. Recently a controversial vascular hypothesis for MS, termed chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency (CCSVI), has been advanced. The objective of this study was to evaluate the relative prevalence of the venous abnormalities that define CCSVI.

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With increases in the sensitivity and resolution of anatomical MRI for the brain, methods for mapping the organization of the cerebral cortex by imaging its myelin content have emerged. This identifies major sensory and motor regions and could be used in studies of cortical organization, particularly if patterns of myelination can be visualized over the cortical surface robustly in individual subjects. The imaging problem is difficult, however, because of the relative thinness of the cerebral cortex and the low intracortical tissue contrast.

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Objective: To evaluate the effects of various combinations of PaCO2 and PaO2 values on brain morphometrics.

Animals: 6 healthy adult dogs.

Procedures: A modified Latin square design for randomization was used.

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Purpose: To measure interindividual, repositioning, and time-of-day effects of single voxel PRESS (Point RESolved Spectroscopy) proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy ((1)H-MRS) acquisition of the anterior cingulate cortex (AC) in healthy human subjects.

Materials And Methods: AC (1)H-MRS measurements were performed in 15 healthy adult volunteers using a short echo PRESS sequence (GE Healthcare 3 Tesla, TE/TR = 30/2500 ms, 192 acquisitions, 6 cm(3) voxels). For each individual, a total of eight spectra were obtained during two identical scanning sessions separated by 3.

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Objective: To assess the effects of alterations in PaCO(2) and PaO(2) on blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signal intensity determined by use of susceptibility-weighted magnetic resonance imaging in brains of isoflurane-anesthetized dogs.

Animals: 6 healthy dogs.

Procedures: In each dog, anesthesia was induced with propofol (6 to 8 mg/kg, IV) and maintained with isoflurane (1.

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The objective of this study was to determine direct measurements of auditory pathways by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) during the growth period of healthy Beagles, and to discover how canine brainstem auditory evoked response (BAER) latencies vary in relation to these MRI measurements. Eighty healthy Beagles were tested at eight, 16 and 52 weeks of age (stages 1, 2, 3, respectively) with BAER and brain MRI. The BAER interpeak latency (IPL) II-V and brain MRI neural generators of BAER waves II and V were identified.

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Several theoretical parallel-imaging approaches are evaluated that seek to improve the efficiency of an MRI experiment involving multiple small samples, such as mice. The best method for our mouse phenotyping application is chosen in terms of efficiency and ease of implementation, and the approach is demonstrated at 1.5 T on a clinical scanner with an array of four shielded birdcage coils with four parallel receivers.

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In one volunteer, five breast coils were evaluated for signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), uniformity, comfort, subject orientation, access to the breast, and unilateral imaging options. The four-coil arrays provided superior SNR, imaging flexibility, and access. Uniformity and comfort were issues with all coils.

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