MRI tagged posts

Brain imaging method reveals hidden vascular changes with aging

USC researchers develop new brain imaging method to reveal hidden vascular changes with aging
Guo et al. present a novel MRI technique at 7 Tesla that enables the first layer-resolved mapping of cerebral microvascular volumetric pulsatility across cortical and white matter regions. Credit: Stevens INI

Researchers at the Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (Stevens INI) at the Keck School of Medicine of USC have developed a brain imaging technique that reveals how tiny blood vessels in the brain pulse with each heartbeat—changes that may hold clues to aging and diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

The study, published in Nature Cardiovascular Research, introduces the first noninvasive method for measuring “microvascular volumetric pulsatility”—the rhythmic expansion and contraction of the brain’s smallest vessels—in living humans.

Using ultra-high-f...

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Higher Levels of Leptin indicate Brain Protection against Late-life Dementia

An image of obesity-overweight: A donut with a waist tape
Weight-maintaining hormone key to brain-signal transmission
Contact: Steven Lee, (210) 450-3823, lees22@uthscsa.edu

Weight-maintaining hormone key to brain-signal transmission. A study more closely links obesity to dementia, finding that leptin, a hormone that helps maintain normal body weight, is associated with better signal-transmitting brain white matter in middle-aged adults.

New research is more closely linking obesity to dementia.

Higher levels of leptin, a hormone that helps maintain normal body weight, is associated with better signal-transmitting brain white matter in middle-aged adults, according to a study by The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio).

“The findings support the known role of leptin variations in late-life d...

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Brain Imaging predicts PTSD after brain injury

This shows the outline of a brain in a woman's head
Together, the findings suggest that a “brain reserve,” or higher cortical volumes, may provide some resilience against PTSD. Image is in the public domain

Brain volume measurement may provide early biomarker. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a complex psychiatric disorder brought on by physical and/or psychological trauma. How its symptoms, including anxiety, depression and cognitive disturbances arise remains incompletely understood and unpredictable. Treatments and outcomes could potentially be improved if doctors could better predict who would develop PTSD. Now, researchers using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have found potential brain biomarkers of PTSD in people with traumatic brain injury (TBI).

The study appears in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience a...

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Physicists observe Room-Temperature Superconductivity

UNLV physicist Ashkan Salamat (above), along with colleague Ranga Dias, assistant professor of physics and mechanical engineering at the University of Rochester, established room-temperature superconductivity in a diamond anvil cell – a small, handheld, and commonly used research device that enables the compression of tiny materials to extreme pressures. The phenomena, reported today as the cover story in the journal Nature, has implications for how energy is stored and transmitted. (Josh Hawkins/UNLV Photo Services)

The discovery opens door for reimagining the energy grid, technology, society...

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