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Neuroimaging of Brain Pathology
Here are a few of the ongoing projects in our laboratory. Check back soon for details and pictures as we obtain results.
Functional MRI of Multiple Sclerosis
We are developing new techniques for imaging MS using fMRI and MEG. We believe that MS is a disorder of brain synchrony and emerging new imaging strategies may be ideally suited for catching the disease early, before it causes severe disability and when effective new treatments are available.
Imaging Characterization of Antiphospholipid Syndrome
APS is a disease that effects blood clotting, and victims experience increased risk of embolic strokes. We have recently discovered that in patients with APS and dementia, imaging features look more like neurodegenerative diseases. We believe there may be more to the pathophysiology than just embolic strokes. Wayne Fang will present our findings at RSNA meeting in December.
Diffusion Tensor Imaging of the Optic Nerves and Cervical Spinal Cord
E.K. Jeong of UCAIR has developed a novel pulse sequence for diffusion tensor imaging that is ideally suited for imaging small 3D volumes such as in the spine or optic nerves. The images look beautiful, shown recently at ASNR and ISMRM. We are testing how effective this sequence is at detecting optic neuritis, spinal cord injury, and multiple sclerosis.
Functional Connectivity of Alzheimer Disease
We have developed a new technique for examining functional connectivity using fMRI that we hope will extend results of Michael Greicius lab and others by looking at patterns of global synchrony. We think that Alzheimer Disease can behave as a disconnection syndrome, and hope to test this using high temporal resolution BOLD imaging. Thanks to help from Jason Watson (Psychology), we are actively testing this theory.
Functional Imaging in Auditory Visual Synaesthesia
Auditory Visual Synaesthetes are patients for whom sounds are perceived in the brain as colors or flashing lights. We have encountered a remarkable patient that has an unusual, acquired, form of the disease later in life. We have completed imaging characterization of this patient and found some very interesting neuroanatomical details that may give clues as to how synaesthesia operates.
Imaging Characterization of Chemobrain in Breast Cancer Patients
Only recently has it become apparent that many survivors of breast cancer after chemotherapy experience accelerated loss of memory, a term that has come to be called Chemobrain. We are studying this phenomenon using fMRI and dynamic PET imaging to determine how the chemotherapy may injure the brain to cause patient symptoms.
fMRI Mapping for Neurosurgery
Our clinical service performing language, motor, visual, and cognitive maps of brain function prior to neurosurgery has encountered some unusual patients. One subject was deaf from an early age, and was found to have conventional language function on one side of the brain but sign language on the other. Another subject with a large arteriovenous malformation showed near complete false negative loss of BOLD response from maximal vasodilation. A third patient had a lesion that looked safe to remove by functional imaging, but diffusion tensor imaging showed optic radiations inoperably adherent to the lesion, preventing total resection.
fMRI in Autism
With colleagues Jason Druzgal at the University of Utah and Nicholas Lange from Harvard, we are continuing to study autism using fMRI. Ongoing projects include studying how the complex effects of music on autistic subjects are different from those of normally developing control subjects. Dr. Druzgal has developed a novel technique to use fMRI to study deficits in empathy in autism. And resting state techniques we have developed for MS and Alzheimer Disease are being tested for applicability to autism as well.
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