Publications by authors named "Weizhao Lu"

Background And Purpose: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is clinically heterogeneous, and resent neuroimaging studies have shown the presence of brain structural heterogeneity in ASD. However, there is currently a lack of evidence for systemic level brain structural heterogeneity. This study aimed to reveal the heterogeneity of brain structural changes at the systemic level in ASD patients through individual differential structural covariance network (IDSCN) analysis.

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Background: Excessive iron accumulation in the brain has been implicated in Parkinson's disease (PD). However, the patterns and probable sequences of iron accumulation across the PD brain remain largely unknown. This study aimed to explore the sequence of iron accumulation across the PD brain using R* mapping and a relaxometry covariance network (RCN) approach.

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Background: The classification of Parkinson disease by age of onset has proven to be a valuable method for subtyping, given its practical application in clinical settings. However, the interactions between the metabolic brain changes, dopaminergic dysfunction, and clinical manifestations in patients with early-onset (early-iPD) and late-onset (late-iPD) idiopathic Parkinson disease have not been adequately evaluated. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the difference in cerebral metabolism and presynaptic dopaminergic function between patients with early-iPD and those with late-onset disease using F-fluorodeoxyglucose (F-FDG) and [F] 9-fluoropropyl-(+)-dihydrotetrabenazine (F-FP-DTBZ) positron emission tomography (PET).

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Background: Applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in medical ultrasound have rapidly grown in recent years. Therefore, it is necessary to identify and visualize global research trends and hotspots of AI in medical ultrasound to provide guidance for further exploitation.

Objective: This study aims to highlight the global research trends and hotspots of the top 100 most-cited papers related to AI in medical ultrasound by combining quantitative and visualization methods.

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Metabolic network analysis in Parkinson's disease (PD) based on F-FDG PET has revealed PD-related metabolic patterns. However, alterations at the systemic metabolic network level and at the connection level between different brain regions still remain unknown. This study aimed to explore metabolic network alterations at multiple network levels among PD patients using an individual-specific metabolic network (ISMN) approach.

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Introduction: Abdominal adipose tissue (AT) mass has adverse effects on the brain. This study aimed to investigate the effect of glucose uptake by abdominal AT on brain aging.

Methods: Three-hundred twenty-five participants underwent total-body positron emission tomography scan.

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Objectives: This study utilizes [Tc]-methylene diphosphate (MDP) single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) images as a reference standard to evaluate whether the integration of radiomics features from computed tomography (CT) and machine learning algorithms can identify microscopic early bone metastases. Additionally, we also determine the optimal machine learning approach.

Materials And Methods: We retrospectively studied 63 patients with early bone metastasis from July 2020 to March 2023.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study investigates how different levels of basilar artery (BA) tortuosity impact blood flow in the posterior circulation of the brain, analyzing data from 138 subjects with varying tortuosity scores.
  • - Findings indicate that hypertension and vertebral artery dominance are significant risk factors for increased BA tortuosity, with a notable negative correlation between BA tortuosity and cerebral blood flow in several brain regions.
  • - The results suggest that BA tortuosity could serve as a useful biomarker for assessing posterior circulation and the severity of ischemia in that area.
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Background: The total-body positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) system, with a long axial field of view, represents the state-of-the-art PET imaging technique. Recently, the total-body PET/CT system has been commercially available. The total-body PET/CT system enables high-resolution whole-body imaging, even under extreme conditions such as ultra-low dose, extremely fast imaging speed, delayed imaging more than 10 h after tracer injection, and total-body dynamic scan.

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Introduction: This study aimed to explore the functional connectivity of the primary visual cortex (V1) in children with anisometropic amblyopia by using the resting-state functional connectivity analysis method and determine whether anisometropic amblyopia is associated with changes in brain function.

Methods: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were obtained from 16 children with anisometropia amblyopia (CAA group) and 12 healthy children (HC group) during the resting state. The Brodmann area 17 (BA17) was used as the region of interest, and the functional connection (FC) of V1 was analyzed in both groups.

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Rationale And Objectives: Primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) is accompanied with gray matter (GM) changes across the brain. However, causal relationships of the GM changes have not been fully understood. Our aim was to investigate the causality of GM progressive changes in POAG using Granger causality (GC) analysis and structural MRI.

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Objective: Deep learning algorithms have commonly been used for the differential diagnosis between benign and malignant thyroid nodules. The aim of the study described here was to develop an integrated system that combines a deep learning model and a clinical standard Thyroid Imaging Reporting and Data System (TI-RADS) for the simultaneous segmentation and risk stratification of thyroid nodules.

Methods: Three hundred four ultrasound images from two independent sites with TI-RADS 4 thyroid nodules were collected.

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Background: Bone metastasis is a common event in lung cancer progression. Early diagnosis of lung malignant tumor with bone metastasis is crucial for selecting effective treatment strategies. However, 14.

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Article Synopsis
  • White matter hyperintensities (WMHs) are changes in the brain that often happen as people get older, and they can relate to health risks and memory issues.
  • A study created a special model to help predict where these changes might happen in the brain using advanced imaging techniques, breaking down images into small parts for analysis.
  • The model showed it could accurately predict WMHs and found that areas identified as high-risk often had actual changes when checked later, connecting WMHs to brain shrinkage and other problems.
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Intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) modeling is a widely used double-exponential model for describing diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) signal, with a slow component related to pure molecular diffusion and a fast component associated with microcirculatory perfusion, which compensates for the limitations of traditional DWI. IVIM is a noninvasive technique for obtaining liver pathological information and characterizing liver lesions, and has potential applications in the initial diagnosis and treatment monitoring of liver diseases. Recent studies have demonstrated that IVIM-derived parameters are useful for evaluating liver lesions, including nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), liver fibrosis and liver tumors.

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Background: The menopause transition is associated with an increasing risk of cerebrovascular disorders. However, the direct effect of menopause status on brain perfusion hemodynamics remains unclear. This study aimed to explore the influence of menopause status on cerebral blood flow (CBF) using arterial spin labeling magnetic resonance imaging.

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Background And Objectives: Overweight and obesity is a complex condition resulting from unbalanced energy homeostasis among various organs. However, systemic abnormalities in overweight and obese people are seldom explored in vivo by metabolic imaging techniques. The aim of this study was to determine metabolic abnormities throughout the body in overweight and obese adults using total-body positron emission tomography (PET) glucose uptake imaging.

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High-tension glaucoma (HTG) is one of the most common forms of primary open angle glaucoma. The purpose of this study was to assess in HTG brain, whether the elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) had an effect on the brain morphological alterations via structural MRI. We acquired T1WI structural MRI images from 56 subjects including 36 HTG patients and 20 healthy controls.

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Osteoarthritis (OA), the most common joint disease, is characterized by inflammation and cartilage degradation. Previous studies illustrated that Smad nuclear-interacting protein 1 (SNIP1) is an inhibitor of the TGF-β signal transduction pathway and SNIP1 has been reported as an anti-inflammatory factor. This study aimed to explore the role of SNIP1 in OA progression.

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Clinical and etiological variability of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) presents an obstacle to understand the disorder. The aim of this study was to disentangle the heterogeneity of ADHD using neuroimaging and a semi-supervised machine learning algorithm. We collected brain structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data and clinical profiles of 183 children with ADHD and 396 neurotypical controls from 7 independent sites.

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Background And Purpose: Fixel-based analysis (FBA) is a new method that overcomes the technical limitations of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) by enabling the characterization of multiple fiber populations within a voxel, and provides biologically meaningful indicators. This study aimed to explore age-related changes in the visual pathway in healthy adults and to observe differences in imaging quality between data collected using different b‑values.

Methods: In this prospective cross-sectional study, brain DTI scans which were collected with more than six uniformly distributed gradient directions and higher b‑values (up to 2000 s/mm) than traditional DTI were performed in 72 healthy adults across the adult lifespan (20-79 years).

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Background: To establish a radiomics-clinical model based on Tc-MDP SPECT/CT for distinguishing between bone metastasis and benign bone disease in tumor patients.

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 256 patients (122 with bone metastasis and 134 with benign bone disease) and randomized them in the ratio of 6:2:2 into training, test and validation sets. All patients underwent Tc-labeled methylene diphosphonate (Tc-MDP) SPECT/CT.

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A growing number of studies have demonstrated that the skeleton is an endocrine organ that is involved in glucose metabolism and plays a significant role in human glucose homeostasis. However, there is still a limited understanding of the in vivo glucose uptake and distribution across the human skeleton. To address this issue, we aimed to elucidate the detailed profile of glucose uptake across the skeleton using a total-body positron emission tomography (PET) scanner.

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