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Brain Sciences
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Perfusion and Functional MRI in Basic and Clinical Neuroscience
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Perfusion and Functional MRI in Basic and Clinical Neuroscience

A special issue of Brain Sciences (ISSN 2076-3425). This special issue belongs to the section "Neurotechnology and Neuroimaging".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (17 March 2024) | Viewed by 5450

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Weiying Dai

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Computer Science, State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, NY 13902, USA
Interests: neuroimaging; blood flow imaging; functional connectivity; computer vision; pattern recognition; deep learning
Dr. Li Zhao

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Biomedical Engineering & Instrument Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
Interests: MRI; arterial spin labeling; machine learning; resting state; BOLD

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been established as a superior anatomical imaging method. In addition to regular anatomical MRI (such as T1 and T2 weighted contrast), functional contrast mechanisms such as perfusion-weighted imaging (PWI) and blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) functional MRI (fMRI) have experienced a technical revolution over the last decade, advanced our understanding to normal brain mapping, and demonstrated their potentials in many clinical conditions, including stroke, presurgical planning, and psychiatric disorders, to name a few. We aim to explore the role of PWI and BOLD fMRI in enhancing our understanding in neuroscience of typical and atypical brains. PWI includes dynamic susceptibility contrast (DSC) MRI and arterial spin labeling (ASL) MRI. ASL MRI is not limited to perfusion measurement at rest, but can be extended to other related measurements, including arterial transit time, perfusion in response to task activation and functional connectivity at rest, and task-induced functional connectivity.

This Special Issue will consider review and original research articles focused on the use of perfusion and functional MRI to advance our understanding of imaging techniques, data analysis methods, brain function, organization, brain function–behavior relationship, brain function–other imaging modality (such as EEG and MEG) relationship in health and disease, and intervention (including behavioral and biomedical processes).

Dr. Weiying Dai
Dr. Li Zhao
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Brain Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • MRI
  • fMRI
  • arterial spin labeling
  • dynamic susceptibility contrast
  • functional connectivity

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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13 pages, 2345 KiB  
Article
Velocity-Selective Arterial Spin Labeling Perfusion in Monitoring High Grade Gliomas Following Therapy: Clinical Feasibility at 1.5T and Comparison with Dynamic Susceptibility Contrast Perfusion
by Sebastian Lambrecht, Dapeng Liu, Omar Dzaye, David O. Kamson, Jonas Reis, Thomas Liebig, Matthias Holdhoff, Peter Van Zijl, Qin Qin and Doris D. M. Lin
Brain Sci. 2024, 14(2), 126; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci14020126 - 25 Jan 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1064
Abstract
MR perfusion imaging is important in the clinical evaluation of primary brain tumors, particularly in differentiating between true progression and treatment-induced change. The utility of velocity-selective ASL (VSASL) compared to the more commonly utilized DSC perfusion technique was assessed in routine clinical surveillance [...] Read more.
MR perfusion imaging is important in the clinical evaluation of primary brain tumors, particularly in differentiating between true progression and treatment-induced change. The utility of velocity-selective ASL (VSASL) compared to the more commonly utilized DSC perfusion technique was assessed in routine clinical surveillance MR exams of 28 patients with high-grade gliomas at 1.5T. Using RANO criteria, patients were assigned to two groups, one with detectable residual/recurrent tumor (“RT”, n = 9), and the other with no detectable residual/recurrent tumor (“NRT”, n = 19). An ROI was drawn to encompass the largest dimension of the lesion with measures normalized against normal gray matter to yield rCBF and tSNR from VSASL, as well as rCBF and leakage-corrected relative CBV (lc-rCBV) from DSC. VSASL (rCBF and tSNR) and DSC (rCBF and lc-rCBV) metrics were significantly higher in the RT group than the NRT group allowing adequate discrimination (p < 0.05, Mann–Whitney test). Lin’s concordance analyses showed moderate to excellent concordance between the two methods, with a stronger, moderate correlation between VSASL rCBF and DSC lc-rCBV (r = 0.57, p = 0.002; Pearson’s correlation). These results suggest that VSASL is clinically feasible at 1.5T and has the potential to offer a noninvasive alternative to DSC perfusion in monitoring high-grade gliomas following therapy. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Perfusion and Functional MRI in Basic and Clinical Neuroscience)
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12 pages, 816 KiB  
Article
Brain Frontal-Lobe Misery Perfusion in COVID-19 ICU Survivors: An MRI Pilot Study
by Jie Song, Shivalika Khanduja, Hannah Rando, Wen Shi, Kaisha Hazel, George Paul Pottanat, Ebony Jones, Cuimei Xu, Zhiyi Hu, Doris Lin, Sevil Yasar, Hanzhang Lu, Sung-Min Cho and Dengrong Jiang
Brain Sci. 2024, 14(1), 94; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci14010094 - 18 Jan 2024
Viewed by 1251
Abstract
Post-acute COVID-19 syndrome (PCS) is highly prevalent. Critically ill patients requiring intensive care unit (ICU) admission are at a higher risk of developing PCS. The mechanisms underlying PCS are still under investigation and may involve microvascular damage in the brain. Cerebral misery perfusion, [...] Read more.
Post-acute COVID-19 syndrome (PCS) is highly prevalent. Critically ill patients requiring intensive care unit (ICU) admission are at a higher risk of developing PCS. The mechanisms underlying PCS are still under investigation and may involve microvascular damage in the brain. Cerebral misery perfusion, characterized by reduced cerebral blood flow (CBF) and elevated oxygen extraction fraction (OEF) in affected brain areas, has been demonstrated in cerebrovascular diseases such as carotid occlusion and stroke. This pilot study aimed to examine whether COVID-19 ICU survivors exhibited regional misery perfusion, indicating cerebral microvascular damage. In total, 7 COVID-19 ICU survivors (4 female, 20–77 years old) and 19 age- and sex-matched healthy controls (12 female, 22–77 years old) were studied. The average interval between ICU admission and the MRI scan was 118.6 ± 30.3 days. The regional OEF was measured using a recently developed technique, accelerated T2-relaxation-under-phase-contrast MRI, while the regional CBF was assessed using pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling. COVID-19 ICU survivors exhibited elevated OEF (β = 5.21 ± 2.48%, p = 0.047) and reduced relative CBF (β = −0.083 ± 0.025, p = 0.003) in the frontal lobe compared to healthy controls. In conclusion, misery perfusion was observed in the frontal lobe of COVID-19 ICU survivors, suggesting microvascular damage in this critical brain area for high-level cognitive functions that are known to manifest deficits in PCS. Physiological biomarkers such as OEF and CBF may provide new tools to improve the understanding and treatment of PCS. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Perfusion and Functional MRI in Basic and Clinical Neuroscience)
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19 pages, 7468 KiB  
Article
Effect of Meditation on Brain Activity during an Attention Task: A Comparison Study of ASL and BOLD Task fMRI
by Yakun Zhang, Shichun Chen, Zongpai Zhang, Wenna Duan, Li Zhao, George Weinschenk, Wen-Ming Luh, Adam K. Anderson and Weiying Dai
Brain Sci. 2023, 13(12), 1653; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13121653 - 29 Nov 2023
Viewed by 990
Abstract
Focused attention meditation (FAM) training has been shown to improve attention, but the neural basis of FAM on attention has not been thoroughly understood. Here, we aim to investigate the neural effect of a 2-month FAM training on novice meditators in a visual [...] Read more.
Focused attention meditation (FAM) training has been shown to improve attention, but the neural basis of FAM on attention has not been thoroughly understood. Here, we aim to investigate the neural effect of a 2-month FAM training on novice meditators in a visual oddball task (a frequently adopted task to evaluate attention), evaluated with both ASL and BOLD fMRI. Using ASL, activation was increased in the middle cingulate (part of the salience network, SN) and temporoparietal (part of the frontoparietal network, FPN) regions; the FAM practice time was negatively associated with the longitudinal changes in activation in the medial prefrontal (part of the default mode network, DMN) and middle frontal (part of the FPN) regions. Using BOLD, the FAM practice time was positively associated with the longitudinal changes of activation in the inferior parietal (part of the dorsal attention network, DAN), dorsolateral prefrontal (part of the FPN), and precentral (part of the DAN) regions. The effect sizes for the activation changes and their association with practice time using ASL are significantly larger than those using BOLD. Our study suggests that FAM training may improve attention via modulation of the DMN, DAN, SN, and FPN, and ASL may be a sensitive tool to study the FAM effect on attention. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Perfusion and Functional MRI in Basic and Clinical Neuroscience)
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14 pages, 2536 KiB  
Article
Decreased Functional Connectivity of the Core Pain Matrix in Herpes Zoster and Postherpetic Neuralgia Patients
by Jiaojiao Yang, Xiaofeng Jiang, Lili Gu, Jiahao Li, Ying Wu, Linghao Li, Jiaxin Xiong, Huiting Lv, Hongmei Kuang and Jian Jiang
Brain Sci. 2023, 13(10), 1357; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13101357 - 22 Sep 2023
Viewed by 824
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to explore the resting-state functional connectivity (FC) changes among the pain matrix and other brain regions in herpes zoster (HZ) and postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) patients. Fifty-four PHN patients, 52 HZ patients, and 54 healthy controls (HCs) underwent [...] Read more.
The purpose of this study was to explore the resting-state functional connectivity (FC) changes among the pain matrix and other brain regions in herpes zoster (HZ) and postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) patients. Fifty-four PHN patients, 52 HZ patients, and 54 healthy controls (HCs) underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) scans. We used a seed-based FC approach to investigate whether HZ and PHN patients exhibited abnormal FC between the pain matrix and other brain regions compared to HCs. A random forest (RF) model was constructed to explore the feasibility of potential neuroimaging indicators to distinguish the two groups of patients. We found that PHN patients exhibited decreased FCs between the pain matrix and the putamen, superior temporal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, middle cingulate gyrus, amygdala, precuneus, and supplementary motor area compared with HCs. Similar results were observed in HZ patients. The disease durations of PHN patients were negatively correlated with those aforementioned impaired FCs. The results of machine learning experiments showed that the RF model combined with FC features achieved a classification accuracy of 75%. Disrupted FC among the pain matrix and other regions in HZ and PHN patients may affect multiple dimensions of pain processing. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Perfusion and Functional MRI in Basic and Clinical Neuroscience)
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Review

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16 pages, 279 KiB  
Review
Clustering Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Time Series in Glioblastoma Characterization: A Review of the Evolution, Applications, and Potentials
by Matteo De Simone, Giorgio Iaconetta, Giuseppina Palermo, Alessandro Fiorindi, Karl Schaller and Lucio De Maria
Brain Sci. 2024, 14(3), 296; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci14030296 - 20 Mar 2024
Viewed by 923
Abstract
In this paper, we discuss how the clustering analysis technique can be applied to analyze functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) time-series data in the context of glioblastoma (GBM), a highly heterogeneous brain tumor. The precise characterization of GBM is challenging and requires advanced [...] Read more.
In this paper, we discuss how the clustering analysis technique can be applied to analyze functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) time-series data in the context of glioblastoma (GBM), a highly heterogeneous brain tumor. The precise characterization of GBM is challenging and requires advanced analytical approaches. We have synthesized the existing literature to provide an overview of how clustering algorithms can help identify unique patterns within the dynamics of GBM. Our review shows that the clustering of fMRI time series has great potential for improving the differentiation between various subtypes of GBM, which is pivotal for developing personalized therapeutic strategies. Moreover, this method proves to be effective in capturing temporal changes occurring in GBM, enhancing the monitoring of disease progression and response to treatment. By thoroughly examining and consolidating the current research, this paper contributes to the understanding of how clustering techniques applied to fMRI data can refine the characterization of GBM. This article emphasizes the importance of incorporating cutting-edge data analysis techniques into neuroimaging and neuro-oncology research. By providing a detailed perspective, this approach may guide future investigations and boost the development of tailored therapeutic strategies for GBM. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Perfusion and Functional MRI in Basic and Clinical Neuroscience)
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