TN2 webinar on Brain Imaging

Speakers: Natalia Petridou & Henk-Jan Mutsaerts.
Natalia Petridou, D.Sc., Associate Professor, Department of Radiology, Imaging Division, UMC Utrecht
Title: Vascular and neuronal contributions to BOLD fMRI Short abstract: BOLD fMRI is the most widely-used technique to measure brain function non-invasively in humans. A challenge in the interpretation of BOLD signals is that they consist of a mix of hemodynamic changes, some of which relate to neuronal activity via micro-vessels, and some of which relate to purely vascular effects via macro-vessels. A better understanding of neuronal and vascular contributions to BOLD can aid in extracting neurophysiological information from fMRI in the context of neuroscience, as well as extracting cortical vessel health markers in the context of small vessel diseases. This presentation will address BOLD specificity at 7T, first with respect to the venous vascular organization in the cortex as captured by sub-millimeter to millimeter resolution fMRI in humans, and second, with respect to neuronal activity as measured with intra-cranial electrophysiology in humans and compared to fMRI measurements in the same subjects.
Henk(-Jan) Mutsaerts, MD PhD, Assistant professor, Department of Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, Amsterdam UMC
Title: Developing ASL perfusion MRI as cerebroVAScular biomarker of COgnitive Decline (VASCODE) Abstract: This project aims to understand how changes in non-invasive brain perfusion MRI can predict cognitive decline in our aging society and its relationship with cardiovascular risk factors. While current imaging techniques can only identify irreversible late-stage structural damage, perfusion MRI is sensitive to early-stage cerebroVAScular changes that put patients at risk for COgnitive DEcline (VASCODE). To develop the full potential of perfusion MRI as a cerebrovascular biomarker, we: I) pool and harmonize multiple perfusion MRI from different scanners and populations to create the ASL-Based Brain Atlas (ABBA), II) disentangle on population-level different effects of normal physiological variability of perfusion MRI, and III) model associations between cardiovascular risk factors, brain perfusion, and cognitive decline. Our research may result in a non-invasive cerebrovascular biomarker that 1) increases our knowledge on the role of brain perfusion in cognitive decline, 2) monitors potential disease-modifying treatment effects, and eventually 3) helps predict cognitive decline.