Jianlin Wu

Correlation of putative iron content as represented by changes in R2* and phase with age in deep gray matter of healthy adults

To establish a correlation between putative iron content using susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI) phase and T2* weighted magnitude values in the basal ganglia and the thalamus as a function of age in healthy human brains.

A perfusion-metabolic mismatch in Sturge-Weber syndrome: A multimodality imaging study

OBJECTIVE We combined perfusion weighted imaging (PWI) with 2-deoxy-2[(18)F]fluoro-D-glucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) to study the relationship between regional metabolic and perfusion abnormalities and their clinical correlates in children with Sturge-Weber syndrome (SWS). METHODS Fifteen children (age: 0.9-10 years) with unilateral SWS underwent high-resolution PWI and FDG PET prospectively. Regional (lobar) asymmetry indices (AIs) of subcortical white matter (WM) cerebral blood flow (CBF) were correlated with corresponding cortical FDG uptake asymmetries, extent of leptomeningeal vascular malformation and clinical seizure variables. RESULTS Abnormal cortical glucose metabolism and/or subcortical WM CBF were seen in all lobes affected by vascular malformation and extended to lobes not affected by abnormal pial vessels in 6 patients. Lower CBF was associated with lower cortical glucose metabolism in the temporal, parietal and occipital lobes (p≤0.02). While decreased perfusion was associated with hypometabolism in most cases, increased regional CBF (found in 6 patients) was commonly associated with relatively mild or no hypometabolism. Ten of 24 cerebral lobes with normal glucose metabolism in the affected hemisphere showed abnormal perfusion. High seizure frequency was associated with severe parieto-occipital hypoperfusion (p≤0.03), while long duration of epilepsy was related to frontal lobe hypometabolism (p=0.015). CONCLUSIONS Regional perfusion and cortical metabolic abnormalities can extend beyond lobes affected by leptomeningeal vascular malformations and are related to epilepsy in SWS. Despite a general correlation between perfusion and metabolism, increased WM perfusion with preserved cortical metabolism in overlying cortex is a common pattern of a perfusion/metabolic mismatch. This may represent a disease stage where cortical function is preserved while increased WM perfusion provides collateral drainage of cortex via the deep vein system.

Detection of chronic brain damage by diffusion-weighted imaging with multiple b values in patients with type 2 diabetes.

AbstractThe aim of the study was to evaluate the performance of parameters obtained from diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) with multiple b values in the detection of chronic brain damage in patients with type 2 diabetes.We enrolled 30 patients with or without abnormalities on brain magnetic resonance imaging (lacunar infarction, leukoaraiosis, and/or brain atrophy) and 15 nondiabetic controls; obtained DWI parameters that included apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), fast ADC (ADCfast), slow ADC (ADCslow), fraction of fast ADC (f), distributed diffusion coefficient (DDC), and stretched exponential (&agr;); and performed receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis to evaluate the performance of parameters for the detection of chronic brain damage.The parameters ADC, ADCslow, f, and DDC were increased, whereas parameters ADCfast and &agr; were decreased in type 2 diabetes patients compared with controls without diabetes. The centrum semiovale showed the most significant change in the evaluated parameters, and the changes in parameters ADCslow, f, and DDC were greater than the changes in other parameters. There was no significance between parameters of the biexponential model (ADCfast, ADCslow, f) and parameters of the stretched model (DDC, &agr;), but parameters of both these models were superior to the parameter of monoexponential model (ADC). Moreover, ROC analysis showed that ADCslow of the centrum semiovale supplied by the anterior cerebral artery had the highest performance for detection of chronic brain damage (area under the ROC curve of 0.987, 93.3% sensitivity, and 100% specificity).Our study shows that DWI with multiple b values can quantitatively access chronic brain damage and may be used for detection and monitoring in type 2 diabetes patients.