Effects of whole and refined grains in a weight-loss diet on markers of metabolic syndrome in individuals with increased waist circumference: a randomized controlled-feeding trial.

Background: Higher whole-grain (WG) intake is associated with a lower prevalence of metabolic syndrome (MetS); however, there is inconsistent clinical evidence with regard to the benefit of WGs compared with refined grains (RGs) on MetS.

Objective: We hypothesized that consuming WGs in the place of RGs would improve MetS criteria in individuals with or at risk of MetS.

Design: A randomized, controlled, open-label parallel study was conducted in 50 overweight and obese individuals with increased waist circumference and one or more other MetS criteria.

Changes in lumbar disk morphology associated with prolonged sitting assessed by magnetic resonance imaging.

Objective: To determine what if any changes occur to the lumbar disks in the spine after prolonged sitting with and without intermittent breaks during a 4-hour period.

Design: A prospective observational study.

Setting: An academic outpatient clinic.

Cholesterol increases ventricular volume in a rabbit model of Alzheimer's disease.

One of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease is a significant increase in ventricular volume. To date we and others have shown that a cholesterol-fed rabbit model of Alzheimer's disease displays as many as fourteen different pathological markers of Alzheimer's disease including amyloid-β accumulation, thioflavin-S staining, blood brain barrier breach, microglia activation, cerebrovasculature changes, and alterations in learning and memory. Using structural magnetic resonance imaging at 3T, we now report that cholesterol-fed rabbits also show a significant increase in ventricular volume following 10 weeks on a diet of 2% cholesterol.

Neurovascular changes measured by time-of-flight MR angiography in cholesterol-fed rabbits with cortical amyloid beta-peptide accumulation.

Purpose: To test the hypothesis that narrowing of cranial blood vessels in cholesterol-fed rabbits is a function of the duration of the high cholesterol diet. Such neurovascular changes, caused by elevated serum cholesterol, are linked to stroke and Alzheimer's disease risk.

Materials And Methods: Four groups of New Zealand White rabbits were studied.

Hippocampal volume change in the Alzheimer Disease Cholesterol-Lowering Treatment trial.

Numerous clinical studies suggest a link between elevated cholesterol and increased risk of Alzheimer disease (AD), and the preponderance of data suggests that statin therapy may reduce the risk of AD later in life. The first clinical investigation of statin therapy in patients with AD, the AD Cholesterol-Lowering Treatment (ADCLT) trial, found that atorvastatin 80 mg/day was associated with improvements relative to placebo on some, but not all, cognitive measures after 6 months and 1 year of therapy. We report here findings from a pilot ADCLT substudy showing a nonsignificant reduction in total hippocampal volume with 1 year of atorvastatin therapy compared with placebo, driven by a highly significant reduction in right hippocampal volume with atorvastatin therapy.

Improvement of vessel visibility in time-of-flight MR angiography of the brain.

Purpose: To improve vessel visibility in time-of-flight MR angiography (TOF-MRA) by careful consideration of coil choice, coil position, and frequency offset and profile of the nonspatially selective chemical shift selective (CHESS) presaturation pulse.

Materials And Methods: The effects of both the CHESS and the excitation radiofrequency (RF) pulses on flow signal and signals from stationary substances were evaluated by changing the spatial area where RF pulses were applied to upstream flow in a flow phantom and in human subjects. The difference between the eight-channel phased-array receive-only coil and the transmit-receive coil was evaluated.

Detection of cerebral metabolites by single-voxel-based PRESS and COSY techniques at 3T.

Purpose: To compare point-resolved spectroscopy (PRESS) and localized two-dimensional (2D) correlated spectroscopy (L-COSY) in the detection of cerebral metabolites in humans on a clinical scanner at 3T and to estimate their respective inter- and intrasubject variances.

Materials And Methods: Measurements were made on nine healthy subjects to assess intersubject variance, and daily on a single subject over a period of seven days to assess intrasubject variance. All L-COSY measurements were performed with a voxel size of 27 mL (3 x 3 x 3 cm(3)) and a measurement time of approximately 34 minutes in the occipitoparietal lobe of the brain.

Implementation and validation of localized constant-time correlated spectroscopy (LCT-COSY) on a clinical 3T MRI scanner for investigation of muscle metabolism.

Purpose: To implement and evaluate a novel single-volume two-dimensional localized constant-time-based correlated spectroscopy (2D LCT-COSY) sequence on a clinical 3T MR scanner. This sequence exhibits homonuclear decoupling along the F1 dimension, leading to improved spectral resolution compared to that of non-constant-time localized correlated spectroscopy (L-COSY).

Materials And Methods: A GE 3T MR scanner equipped with a quadrature transmit and receive extremity coil was used in this study.

Investigation of muscle lipid metabolism by localized one- and two-dimensional MRS techniques using a clinical 3T MRI/MRS scanner.

Purpose: To demonstrate the feasibility of estimating the relative intra- and extramyocellular lipid (IMCL and EMCL) pool magnitudes and calculating the degree of lipid unsaturation within soleus muscle using single-voxel localized one- and two-dimensional (1D and 2D) MR spectroscopy (MRS).

Materials And Methods: Localized 1D point resolved spectroscopy (PRESS) and 2D correlation spectroscopy (L-COSY) were performed in identical locations in the soleus muscle of 10 healthy subjects. A GE 3-T MRI/MRS scanner and a quadrature extremity transmit/receive coil was used.

Simultaneous MRI and PET imaging of a rat brain.

Multi-modality imaging is rapidly becoming a valuable tool in the diagnosis of disease and in the development of new drugs. Functional images produced with PET fused with anatomical structure images created by MRI will allow the correlation of form with function. Our group is developing a system to acquire MRI and PET images contemporaneously.

Anterior medial temporal lobe activation during encoding of words: FMRI methods to optimize sensitivity.

The existence of a rostrocaudal gradient of medial temporal lobe (MTL) activation during memory encoding has historically received support from positron emission tomography studies, but less so from functional MRI (FMRI) studies. More recently, FMRI studies have demonstrated that characteristics of the stimuli can affect the location of activation seen in the MTL when those stimuli are encoded. The current study tested the hypothesis that MTL activation during memory encoding is related to the modality of stimulus presentation.

An fMRI investigation of covertly and overtly produced mono- and multisyllabic words.

Studies suggest that the left insula may play an important role in speech motor programming. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the role of the left insula in the production of monosyllabic or multisyllabic words during overt and covert speech conditions. The left insula did not show a BOLD response for multisyllabic words (which should require more speech motor programming) that was different from that for monosyllabic words.

Retinotopic organization in children measured with fMRI.

Many measures of visual function reach adult levels by about age 5, but some visual abilities continue to develop throughout adolescence. Little is known about the underlying functional anatomy of visual cortex in human infants or children. We used fMRI to measure the retinotopic organization of visual cortex in 15 children aged 7-12 years.