John R. Prince

MR Imaging Determination of the Location of the Normal Conus Medullaris Throughout Childhood

This retrospective study was designed to determine the location of the conus medullaris in normal children by reviewing a series of MR images of the lumbar spine. The study group consisted of 184 children ranging in age from newborn to 20 years who had a normal conus level as reported by the radiologist of record. The range of conus levels for the entire group of normal children was T12 to L3. The range for the 0-2-year-old group was T12 to L2-L3 with an average of L1-L2. The range of conus levels for the 19-20-year-old group was L1 to L2 with an average of L1-L2. We conclude that the conus medullaris does not ascend throughout childhood as stated by previous authors but attains the adult level sometime during the first few months of life. A conus level at L2-L3 or above should be considered normal at any age. A conus level at L3 is indeterminate, since it is possible for a normal or a tethered conus to be located at this level.

Transfer function measurement and analysis for a magnetic resonance imager

The transfer function characteristics of a 1.5T imager have been determined. An edge response function (ERF) was obtained from a water/Plexiglas interface at various pixel widths ranging from 0.312 to 1.0 mm. An SE pulse sequence was used with a 5-mm transaxial slice. The ERF was smoothed, differentiated, and Fourier transformed to obtain MTF curves. The LSF was analyzed for skewness and kurtosis. The area under the MTF amplitude curves and the equivalent bandpass were calculated. All ERFs, LSFs, and MTFs were well behaved. The resulting LSF was Gaussian. All calculated MTFs had cutoff frequencies slightly less than the theoretical Nyquist limit. The MTF calculated from the theoretical Gaussian LSF is slightly superior to that calculated from experimental data and provides an upper limit to the MTF. Spatial resolution in our MR imager is dominated by the pixel size via the Nyquist sampling theorem. System performance is slightly less than theoretically predicted, possibly due to image processing algorithms during the reconstruction process.

Memory Deficits in a Demented Patient with Probable Corticobasal Degeneration

Anterograde and retrograde amnesia in a patient with probable corticobasal degeneration (pCBD) and dementia were studied in a university medical center setting. The patient with pCBD and four comparison patients of comparable global mental status (Mini-Mental State Exam) who met NINCDS-ADRDA criteria for Alzheimers disease (AD) were included. Standard neuropsychological tests of naming, intelligence, achievement, verbal fluency, anterograde and remote verbal and visuospatial memory, and motor skill learning were given. The pCBD patient exhibited a progressive asymmetric akinetic-rigid syndrome, which was unresponsive to Sinemet. His initially mild, intellectual deficits consisted of apraxia, slowed speech, and word-finding and memory difficulties. Over a 2-year period, a dementia syndrome developed, which involved more-serious deficits in praxis and naming, as well as impairments in spelling, calculation, verbal fluency, IQ, anterograde verbal and visuospatial memory, and motor skill learning. When tested by recall methods, the pCBD patient exhibited marked deficits on several tests of remote memory; however, on recognition testing, he performed normally on the Famous Faces Test and on a test of geographical knowledge, which measures remote visuospatial memory. By contrast, the four AD patients, who showed equivalent naming difficulties, less-severe fluency deficits, and normal motor skill learning, showed severe impairments in recalling and recognizing the names of famous people from photographs. A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan of the pCBD patient showed marked frontal and parietal lobe atrophy and central atrophy, with ventriculomegaly that was greater on the left side of the brain. The temporal lobes were relatively spared, and the amygdalae, hippocampi, and temporal horns were of normal size. The striking integrity of the pCBD patients remote recognition memory can probably be accounted for by the absence of atrophy of medial temporal lobe structures, especially the hippocampus, which undergo degenerative changes early in the course of AD. Alternatively, differences in the extent of damage to the temporoparietal cortices may explain the remote-memory differences between the pCBD and the AD patients.

Bootstrap sensitometry for nuclear medicine

A full radioscintigraphic monitor/film system sensitometric curve has been obtained utilizing a bootstrap technique in which individual characteristic curve segments, obtained from stepwedge-graded exposures, are tied together at the point of overlap. Curve segments were first smoothed by employing the linearized form of the logistic distribution function. This function allows calculation of gradient-exposure and gradient-density relations for the full characteristic curve.

Logistic Distribution As A Model Of Film Characteristic Curves In Radiological Imaging

The cumulative logistic distribution function is shown to be a robust mathematical model of film characteristic curves for a variety of radiological imaging tasks. This model allows one to write analytical functions for several important metrices in film sensitometry. In practice, curve-fitting is accomplished by linear regression analysis of the logistic distribution by forming the logit of D/Dm where D is the optical density and Dm denotes the maximum optical density obtainable. This model has been used to characterize films in radioscintigraphy, conventional film/screen combination and a multiformat camera. Linearization of the characteristic curves resulted in correlation coefficients ranging from 0.980 - 0.996.