Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)

BACKGROUND: Motivational and cognitive abnormalities are frequently reported in pathological gambling. However, studies simultaneously investigating motivational and cognitive processing in problematic gamblers are lacking, limiting our understanding of the interplay between these systems in problematic gambling. Studies in non-clinical samples indicate that interactions between dorsal "executive" and ventral "affective" processing systems are necessary for adequate responses in various emotive situations.

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: Fibrin deposition has been indicated within the stroma of a majority of solid tumors. Here we assess the feasibility of using the established fibrin-specific probe EP-2104R for noninvasive imaging of fibrin in the context of breast cancer.
METHODS: EP-2104R, untargeted gadopentetate dimeglumine (Gd-DTPA), and a newly synthesized nonfibrin binding control linear peptide (CLP) were compared using steady-state and dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging in a breast cancer xenograft mouse model at 9.4 T.

Here we report a generalizable solid/solution-phase strategy for the synthesis of discrete bimodal fibrin-targeted imaging probes. A fibrin-specific peptide was conjugated with two distinct imaging reporters at the C- and N-termini. In vitro studies demonstrated retention of fibrin affinity and specificity. Imaging studies showed that these probes could detect fibrin over a wide range of probe concentrations by optical, magnetic resonance, and positron emission tomography imaging.

Meta-analytic summaries of neuroimaging studies point to at least two major functional-anatomic subdivisions within the anterior insula that contribute to the detection and processing of salient information: a dorsal region that is routinely active during attention tasks and a ventral region that is routinely active during affective experience.

We introduce a novel method of prospectively compensating for subject motion in neuroanatomical imaging. Short three-dimensional echo-planar imaging volumetric navigators are embedded in a long three-dimensional sequence, and the resulting image volumes are registered to provide an estimate of the subject's location in the scanner at a cost of less than 500 ms, ~ 1% change in contrast, and ~3% change in intensity. This time fits well into the existing gaps in sequences routinely used for neuroimaging, thus giving a motion-corrected sequence with no extra time required.

Active reading requires coordination between frequent eye movements (saccades) and short fixations in text. Yet, the impact of saccades on word processing remains unknown, as neuroimaging studies typically employ constant eye fixation. Here we investigate eye-movement effects on word recognition processes in healthy human subjects using anatomically constrained magnetoencephalography, psychophysical measurements, and saccade detection in real time.

The elegant study by Naresh and colleagues (1) synthesizes many of the best aspects of molecular magnetic resonance(MR) imaging: Quantitative serial imaging of a well-defined molecular process is performed in vivo, and its results are correlated with sensitive measures of left ventricular function. The technique described adds a valuable tool to the molecular imaging armamentarium. How, then, will myocardial inflammation be imaged with MR imaging?The only clinical experience to date has been with iron oxide nanoparticles (2,3).

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Toward the goal of designing a clinical trial using imaging parameters to treat stroke patients with unknown onset time, we investigated the timing of changes on MRI in patients with well-defined stroke onset.
METHODS: Hypothesis-generating (n=85) and confirmatory (n=111) samples were scored by blinded readers for fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) hyperintensity in diffusion-positive regions. Reader-measured signal intensity ratio (SIR) of the lesion to contralateral tissue was compared with SIR measured by coregistration.

The ability to optimize behavioural performance when confronted with continuously evolving environmental demands is a key element of human cognition. The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), which lies on the medial surface of the frontal lobes, is important in regulating cognitive control. Hypotheses about its function include guiding reward-based decision making, monitoring for conflict between competing responses and predicting task difficulty. Precise mechanisms of dACC function remain unknown, however, because of the limited number of human neurophysiological studies.