MR imaging of the fetal brain at 1.5T and 3.0T field strengths: comparing specific absorption rate (SAR) and image quality.

Objectives: Our two objectives were to evaluate the feasibility of fetal brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) using a fast spin echo sequence at 3.0T field strength with low radio frequency (rf) energy deposition (as measured by specific absorption rate: SAR) and to compare image quality, tissue contrast and conspicuity between 1.5T and 3.

MR venography of the fetal brain using susceptibility weighted imaging.

Purpose: To evaluate the feasibility of performing fetal brain magnetic resonance venography using susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI).

Materials And Methods: After obtaining informed consent, pregnant women in the second and third trimester were imaged using a modified SWI sequence. Fetal SWI acquisition was repeated when fetal or maternal motion was encountered.

Measuring venous blood oxygenation in fetal brain using susceptibility-weighted imaging.

Purpose: To evaluate fetal cerebral venous blood oxygenation, Yv, using principles of MR susceptometry.

Materials And Methods: A cohort of 19 pregnant subjects, with a mean gestational age of 31.6 ± 4.

Cross-hemispheric functional connectivity in the human fetal brain.

Compelling evidence indicates that psychiatric and developmental disorders are generally caused by disruptions in the functional connectivity (FC) of brain networks. Events occurring during development, and in particular during fetal life, have been implicated in the genesis of such disorders. However, the developmental timetable for the emergence of neural FC during human fetal life is unknown.

Patients with multiple sclerosis with structural venous abnormalities on MR imaging exhibit an abnormal flow distribution of the internal jugular veins.

Purpose: To evaluate extracranial venous structural and flow characteristics in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS).

Materials And Methods: Two hundred subjects with MS from two sites (n = 100 each) were evaluated with magnetic resonance (MR) imaging at 3 T. Contrast-enhanced time-resolved MR angiography and time-of-flight MR venography were used to assess vascular anatomy.

Correlation of putative iron content as represented by changes in R2* and phase with age in deep gray matter of healthy adults.

Purpose: To establish a correlation between putative iron content using susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI) phase and T2* weighted magnitude values in the basal ganglia and the thalamus as a function of age in healthy human brains.

Materials And Methods: One hundred healthy adults (range, 20-69 years; mean, 43 years) were evaluated for this study using a gradient echo sequence. The original magnitude and high pass filtered phase data were analyzed as proxy variables for iron content in the substantia nigra, red nucleus, globus pallidus, putamen, caudate nucleus, thalamus, and pulvinar thalamus.

Dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging of vascular changes induced by sunitinib in papillary renal cell carcinoma xenograft tumors.

To investigate further the antiangiogenic potential of sunitinib for renal cell carcinoma (RCC) treatment, its effects on tumor vasculature were monitored by dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) using an orthotopic KCI-18 model of human RCC xenografts in nude mice. Tumor-bearing mice were treated with various doses of sunitinib, and vascular changes were assessed by DCE-MRI and histologic studies. Sunitinib induced dose-dependent vascular changes, which were observed both in kidney tumors and in normal kidneys by DCE-MRI.