Dear MRI Insider,
Today's Insider Exclusive describes how Canadian researchers used perfusion-based functional MRI with a 4-tesla arterial spin labeling protocol to measure brain activity in people with early-stage Alzheimer's disease while they performed memory tasks.
Steven Beyea, PhD, scientific director of the Biomedical Translational Imaging Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and colleagues found increased activity in the bilateral prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex in response to both memory encoding and retrieval tasks. Learn more about their results by clicking here.
In other recent news, Japanese researchers found a connection between gadolinium-based MRI and abnormalities in two regions of the brain, which could represent a reaction to gadolinium's toxicity. The findings from Teikyo University suggest the possibility that a toxic component of the contrast agent may remain in the body long after it is injected, even in patients with normal renal function.
We're also bringing you a study in which doctors themselves were scanned. In the first study to examine physician burnout using functional MRI, researchers found that residents' clinical reasoning is more profoundly affected by the syndrome than that of faculty physicians.
The annual RSNA meeting also provided a venue for numerous groundbreaking studies:
- Using a novel cardiac MRI technique called complementary spatial modulation of magnetization, German researchers found significantly increased heart contraction rates in the left ventricle of healthy young adults one hour after they consumed energy drinks.
- An MRI technique called magnetic field correlation was used to measure iron levels in the brains of children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder to improve diagnosis of the condition.
- If and when it is ready for routine clinical use, 7-tesla time-of-flight MR angiography will provide "superior assessment" of aneurysms and related vessel features, according to researchers from Essen University Hospital.
- And evidence for the efficacy of whole-body FDG-PET/MRI continues to mount, as the hybrid modality outperformed MRI alone for staging women with suspected pelvic malignancies.
Be sure to stay touch with the MRI Digital Community on a daily basis to view the latest news and novel research from around the world.
And, most of all, everyone at AuntMinnie.com wishes our readers a joyous holiday season and a very healthy and prosperous 2014.
