The Role of the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex in Preferential Decisions for Own- and Other-Age Faces.

Own-age bias is a well-known bias reflecting the effects of age, and its role has been demonstrated, particularly, in face recognition. However, it remains unclear whether an own-age bias exists in facial impression formation. In the present study, we used three datasets from two published and one unpublished functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study that employed the same pleasantness rating task with fMRI scanning and preferential choice task after the fMRI to investigate whether healthy young and older participants showed own-age effects in face preference.

Thrombosis of a basilar perforator aneurysm associated with pontine infarction in a patient with systemic lupus erythematosus.

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease that can affect multiple organ systems. Cerebral aneurysm formation is a rare central nervous system manifestation of SLE and tends to present as subarachnoid hemorrhage. Here, we report a 34-year-old woman with SLE complicated by a thrombosed aneurysm that had arose at the origin of a perforating artery, thereby causing obstruction of the artery and subsequent development of pontine infarction.

Relationship between decreased cerebral blood flow and amnesia after microsurgery for anterior communicating artery aneurysm.

Objective: Postoperative amnesia after surgery for anterior communicating artery aneurysm might be associated with the damage of the basal forebrain. Our purpose was to verify whether decreased regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in basal forebrain could be related to the degree of postoperative amnesia.

Methods: Regional voxel rCBF data analyzed using three-dimensional stereotactic surface projection on I-IMP-SPECT were compared between ten patients with postoperative amnesia and 13 normal subjects.

Perfusion contrast-enhanced ultrasound to predict early lymph-node metastasis in breast cancer.

Purpose: To evaluate whether quantitative analysis of perfusion contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CE-US) could predict early lymph-node (LN) metastasis in clinically node-negative breast cancer.

Materials And Methods: In this prospective study, 64 breast cancer patients were selected for perfusion CE-US imaging. Regions of interest were placed where the strongest and weakest signal increases were found to obtain peak intensities (PIs; PI and PI, respectively) for time-intensity curve analyzes.

Ultrafast Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced Breast MRI: Kinetic Curve Assessment Using Empirical Mathematical Model Validated with Histological Microvessel Density.

Rationale And Objectives: To evaluate whether parameters from empirical mathematical model (EMM) for ultrafast dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) correlate with histological microvessel density (MVD) in invasive breast cancer.

Materials And Methods: Ninety-eight consecutive patients with invasive breast cancer underwent an institutional review board-approved ultrafast DCE-MRI including a pre- and 18 postcontrast whole breast ultrafast scans (3 seconds) followed by four standard scans (60 seconds) using a 3T system. Region of interest was placed within each lesion where the highest signal increase was observed on ultrafast DCE-MRI, and the increase rate of enhancement was calculated as follows: ΔS = (SIpost - SIpre)/SIpre.

Fast Temporal Resolution Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MRI: Histogram Analysis Versus Visual Analysis for Differentiating Benign and Malignant Breast Lesions.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to validate a kinetic assessment based on visually identified peak enhancement, which is routinely used in clinical practice, for differentiating benign from malignant lesions during fast dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI.

Materials And Methods: Between January 2015 and December 2016, 90 consecutively registered patients with 105 breast lesions (40 benign, 65 malignant) underwent dynamic contrast-enhanced 1.5-T MRI that included one unenhanced and eight contrast-enhanced fast temporal resolution (10 seconds) whole-breast acquisitions.

Traumatic midline subarachnoid hemorrhage on initial computed tomography as a marker of severe diffuse axonal injury.

OBJECTIVEThe objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that midline (interhemispheric or perimesencephalic) traumatic subarachnoid hemorrhage (tSAH) on initial CT may implicate the same shearing mechanism that underlies severe diffuse axonal injury (DAI).METHODSThe authors enrolled 270 consecutive patients (mean age [± SD] 43 ± 23.3 years) with a history of head trauma who had undergone initial CT within 24 hours and brain MRI within 30 days.

Subcallosal and Heubner artery infarcts following surgical repair of an anterior communicating artery aneurysm: a causal relationship with postoperative amnesia and long-term outcome.

Since the 1950s, amnesia or memory impairment has been repeatedly reported in patients following surgical repair of anterior communicating artery (ACoA) aneurysms. Postoperative infarctions following surgical repair of ACoA aneurysms are classified as involvement of the subcallosal artery (the largest unpaired perforator of the ACoA), the recurrent artery of Heubner (RAH), or a combination of both. Postoperative amnesia can seriously affect the patient's quality of life, thus prompting physicians to discuss the symptomatology of the three infarction patterns.

Ischemic White Matter Lesions Associated With Medullary Arteries: Classification of MRI Findings Based on the Anatomic Arterial Distributions.

Objective: The purposes of this article are to describe the important role of the medullary arteries in the pathogenesis of cerebral vascular disease and to present a classification of MRI findings of ischemic white matter lesions for use in elucidating pathogenesis.

Conclusion: From the viewpoint of the anatomy of the medullary arteries, the pattern of medullary artery-related ischemic changes and infarcts can be classified into four types: 1, ischemic leukoaraiosis; 2, infarcts involving individual medullary arteries; 3, watershed infarcts; and 4, territorial infarcts.

A change in brain white matter after shunt surgery in idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus: a tract-based spatial statistics study.

Background: The aim of this study was to elucidate changes in cerebral white matter after shunt surgery in idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (INPH) using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).

Methods: Twenty-eight consecutive INPH patients whose symptoms were followed for 1 year after shunt placement and 10 healthy control (HC) subjects were enrolled. Twenty of the initial 28 INPH patients were shunt-responsive (SR) and the other 8 patients were non-responsive (SNR).

Quantitative Analysis of Contrast-Enhanced Ultrasound Imaging in Invasive Breast Cancer: A Novel Technique to Obtain Histopathologic Information of Microvessel Density.

We examined whether enhancement area ratios obtained by the new bubble detection method correlate with histologic microvessel density in invasive breast cancer. Forty consecutive patients with invasive breast cancer lesions underwent contrast-enhanced ultrasound. The ratio of enhanced area to manually segmented tumor area (enhancement area ratio) was obtained with the new method at peak and delayed phases (50-54, 55-59, 60-64 and 65-69 s).

T2 relaxometry improves detection of non-sclerotic epileptogenic hippocampus.

Object: The use of T2 relaxometry was investigated to detect non-sclerotic epileptogenic abnormality of the hippocampus in presurgical evaluation of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE).

Methods: This prospective study included 30 patients who underwent hippocampectomy as part of surgical treatment of refractory TLE. Ten patients had structural epileptogenic lesions in the extra-hippocampal temporal lobe.

Gender differences in ventromedial prefrontal cortex activity associated with valuation of faces.

Psychological studies have indicated that males exhibit stronger preferences for physical attributes in the opposite gender, such as facial attractiveness, than females. However, whether gender differences in mate preference originate from differential brain activity remains unclear. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated the patterns of brain activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), a region critical for the valuation of faces, in response to elderly male, elderly female, young male, and young female faces.

Canadian CT head rule and New Orleans Criteria in mild traumatic brain injury: comparison at a tertiary referral hospital in Japan.

We compared Canadian computed tomography (CT) head rule (CCHR) and New Orleans Criteria (NOC) in predicting important CT findings in patients with mild traumatic brain injury (TBI). We included 142 consecutive patients with mild TBI [Glasgow coma scale (GCS) 13-15] who showed at least one of the risk factors stated in the CCHR or the NOC. We introduced two scores: a Canadian from the CCHR and a New Orleans from the NOC.

Altered white matter metabolism in delayed neurologic sequelae after carbon monoxide poisoning: A proton magnetic resonance spectroscopic study.

Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy ((1)H-MRS) was recently used to examine altered metabolism in the white matter (WM) of patients experiencing carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning; however, only a small number of patients with delayed neurologic sequelae (DNS) were analyzed. We aimed to detect altered metabolism in the WM of patients with DNS using (1)H-MRS; to explore its clinical relevance in the management of patients experiencing CO poisoning. Patients experiencing acute CO poisoning underwent (1)H-MRS and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) examination within 1week and at 1month after acute poisoning.

Utility of diffusion tensor imaging parameters for diagnosis of hemimegalencephaly.

Background: Hemimegalencephaly is a rare hamartomatous entity characterised by enlargement of all or part of the cerebral hemisphere ipsilaterally with cortical dysgenesis, large lateral ventricle and white matter hypertrophy with or without advanced myelination. Although conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is useful for detecting these diagnostic features, hemimegalencephaly is not always easily distinguished from other entities, especially when hemimegalencephaly shows blurring between the grey and white matter. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is a functional MRI technique commonly used to assess the integrity of white matter.

A comparative study of the extent of cerebral microvascular injury following whole-brain irradiation versus reduced-field irradiation in long-term survivors of intracranial germ cell tumors.

Background And Purpose: Radiation-induced cerebral cavernous malformation reflects post-irradiation impairment of cerebral microcirculation. Our purpose was to determine effects of radiation field size and dose on the extent of developing cavernous malformations in long-term survivors of intracranial germ cell tumors (GCTs).

Methods: The study involved 34 patients with a history of intracranial GCTs treated with either whole-brain or reduced-field irradiation and undergoing magnetic resonance (MR) imaging with a mean follow-up of 18.