BACKGROUND A relevant fraction of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) exhibit a fronto-temporal pattern of cognitive and behavioural disturbances with pronounced deficits in executive functioning and cognitive control of behaviour. Structural imaging shows a decline in fronto-temporal brain areas, but most brain imaging studies did not evaluate cognitive status. We investigated mi...

BACKGROUND Elucidating the neurobiological effects of sleep and waking remains an important goal of the neurosciences. Recently, animal studies indicated that sleep is important for cell membrane and myelin maintenance in the brain and that these structures are particularly susceptible to insufficient sleep. Here, we tested the hypothesis that a day of waking and sleep deprivation would be asso...

Background: After perinatal brain injury, clinico-anatomic correlations of functional deficits and brain plasticity remain difficult to evaluate clinically in the young infant. Here, the visual system recovery in an infant with perinatal stroke is assessed by combining diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and event-related functional MRI (ER-fMRI). Methods: All experiments were done at 1.5T. A first ...

During human brain development from fetal stage to adulthood, the white matter (WM) tracts undergo dramatic changes. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), a widely used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) modality, offers insight into the dynamic changes of WM fibers as these fibers can be noninvasively traced and three-dimensionally (3D) reconstructed with DTI tractography. The DTI and conventional T1 ...

OBJECTIVE To analyze diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data in the substantia nigra (SN) using a more consistent region of interest (ROI) defined by neuromelanin-sensitive MRI in order to assess Parkinson's disease (PD) related changes in diffusion characteristics in the SN. METHODS T1 -weighted and DTI data were obtained in a cohort of 37 subjects (17 control subjects and 20 subjects with PD). ...

OBJECTIVES Direct thrombin inhibitors (DTIs), a relatively new class of anticoagulants, present several challenges regarding monitoring of their anticoagulant effects and overcoming bleeding associated with their use. The aim of this article is to (1) briefly present the pharmacologic properties of currently available DTIs, (2) discuss approaches to laboratory assessment of these drugs, and (3)...

BACKGROUND Left ventricular (LV) torsional deformation is a sensitive index for LV performance but difficult to measure. The present study tested the accuracy of a novel method that uses Doppler tissue imaging (DTI) for quantifying LV torsion in humans with tagged magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as a reference. METHODS AND RESULTS Twenty patients underwent DTI and tagged MRI studies. Images ...

OBJECTIVE To test the hypothesis that diastolic mitral annular motion velocity, as determined by Doppler tissue imaging and left ventricular diastolic flow propagation velocity, is related to the histological degree of heart transplant rejection according to the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT). METHODS In 41 heart transplant recipients undergoing 151 myocardial...

BACKGROUND Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is prone to numerous systemic confounding factors that should be acknowledged to avoid false conclusions. PURPOSE To investigate the possible effects of age, gender, smoking, alcohol consumption, and education on cerebral DTI parameters in a generally healthy homogenous sample with no neurological or psychiatric diseases. MATERIAL AND METHODS Forty ...

The NIH MRI Study of normal brain development sought to characterize typical brain development in a population of infants, toddlers, children and adolescents/young adults, covering the socio-economic and ethnic diversity of the population of the United States. The study began in 1999 with data collection commencing in 2001 and concluding in 2007. The study was designed with the final goal of pr...