Correlation between asymmetrical vein sign of SWI and long-term clinical outcomes in patients with middle cerebral artery ischemic stroke.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the association of asymmetrical cortical vein sign (ACVS) and asymmetrical medullary vein sign (AMVS) on susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI) with 90-day poor outcomes in patients with unilateral middle cerebral artery acute ischemic stroke (AIS) after conservative drug treatment. METHODS: Clinical data for the participants included age, sex, smoking, alcohol, hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, coronary heart disease, NHISS-admission, and NHISS-discharge scores. Participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) within 12 h of hospital admission, including conventional scan sequences and a SWI sequence. Poor prognosis was defined as a modified Rankin scale (mRS) ≥ 3 at 90 days. RESULTS: A total of 108 patients were included from January 2021 to March 2022. Twenty-seven (25%) patients had a poor outcome at 90 days. Univariate analysis indicated that diabetes, NHISS-admission, NHISS-discharge, DWI-ASPECTS, SWI-ASPECTS, FLAIR-ASPECTS, and AMVS + were associated with 90-day poor outcome. Multivariate regression analysis showed that AMVS + was associated with 90-day poor outcome from the three models (OR = 3.57, P = 0.006; OR = 3.74, P = 0.005; OR = 5.14, P = 0.0057). However, no significant association was found between ACVS + and 90-day poor outcome. CONCLUSIONS: AMVS might be a helpful neuroimaging predictor for poor outcome at 90 days compared to ACVS in drug-conserving treatment of patients with unilateral middle cerebral artery ischemic stroke.

Identification of novel hub genes for Alzheimer's disease associated with the hippocampus using WGCNA and differential gene analysis.

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a common, refractory, progressive neurodegenerative disorder in which cognitive and memory deficits are highly correlated with abnormalities in hippocampal brain regions. There is still a lack of hippocampus-related markers for AD diagnosis and prevention. Methods: Differently expressed genes were identified in the gene expression profile GSE293789 in the hippocampal brain region. Enrichment analyses GO, KEGG, and GSEA were used to identify biological pathways involved in the DEGs and AD-related group. WGCNA was used to identify the gene modules that are highly associated with AD in the samples. The intersecting genes of the genes in DEGs and modules were extracted and the top ten ranked hub genes were identified. Finally GES48350 was used as a validation cohort to predict the diagnostic efficacy of hub genes. Results: From GSE293789, 225 DEGs were identified, which were mainly associated with calcium response, glutamatergic synapses, and calcium-dependent phospholipid-binding response. WGCNA analysis yielded dark green and bright yellow modular genes as the most relevant to AD. From these two modules, 176 genes were extracted, which were taken to be intersected with DEGs, yielding 51 intersecting genes. Then 10 hub genes were identified in them: HSPA1B, HSPB1, HSPA1A, DNAJB1, HSPB8, ANXA2, ANXA1, SOX9, YAP1, and AHNAK. Validation of these genes was found to have excellent diagnostic performance. Conclusion: Ten AD-related hub genes in the hippocampus were identified, contributing to further understanding of AD development in the hippocampus and development of targets for therapeutic prevention.

Diffusion kurtosis imaging: An efficient tool for evaluating age-related changes in rat brains.

PURPOSE: To evaluate and determine age-related changes in rat brains by studying the diffusion kurtosis imaging results among different age groups of rats. METHODS: Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats underwent conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and diffusion Kurtosis Imaging (DKI). Two diffusion values of mean kurtosis (MK) and kurtosis (K⊥ ) were measured and analyzed based on laterality, brain regions and age groups. The MK and K⊥ data were plotted against different age groups. RESULTS: No laterality was found for the MK or K⊥ values in the cerebral cortex (CT), external capsule (EC), or caudate putamen (CPu) regions. In contrast, significant changes in these values were observed among different age groups. Changes of the MK and K⊥ values were significant in both hemispheres in the EC, the CT, and the CPu brain regions. The changes in the MK and K⊥ values showed a parabolic relationship with ages in all the brain regions. CONCLUSION: No laterality in the MK and K⊥ values was observed for the EC, CT, or CPu regions of the rat brain. Significant changes in MK and K⊥ values were both observed among different age groups, thus suggesting diffusion kurtosis imaging as an efficient tool for studying brain aging in rats.

A voxel-based morphometric study of age- and sex-related changes in white matter volume in the normal aging brain.

OBJECTIVE: To carry out a cross-sectional study of 187 cognitively normal Chinese adults using the voxel-based morphometry (VBM) approach to delineate age-related changes in the white matter volume of regions of interest in the brain and further analyze their correlation with age. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 187 cognitively normal adults were divided into the young, middle, and old age-groups. Conventional magnetic resonance imaging was performed with the Achieva 3.0 T system. Structural images were processed using VBM8 and statistical parametric mapping 8. Regions of interest were obtained by WFU PickAtlas, and all realigned images were spatially normalized. RESULTS: Females showed significantly greater total white matter volume than males (t=2.36, P=0.0096, false-discovery rate [FDR] corrected). VBM demonstrated statistically significant age-related differences in white matter volume between the young age-group and the middle age-group (P<0.05, FDR corrected) and between the middle age-group and the old age-group (P<0.05, FDR corrected). No interaction was found between age and sex on white matter volume (P<0.05, FDR corrected). Logistic regression analysis revealed nonlinear correlation between total white matter volume and age (R (2)=0.124, P<0.001). White matter volume gradually increased before 40 years of age, peaked around 50 years of age, and rapidly declined after 60 years of age. CONCLUSION: Significant age-related differences are present in white matter volume across multiple brain regions during aging. The VBM approach may help differentiate underlying normal neurobiological aging changes of specific brain regions from neurodegenerative impairments.

MRI localization of the subthalamic nucleus in normal adults and its relation with age.

The subthalamic nucleus regulates motor and neurocognitive functions. Because of its small size and close proximity to other small subcortical structures, it has been a challenge to localize and visualize it using MRI. Here, we sought to define the optimal MRI scan method and visualization plane for locating the subthalamic nucleus on MRI images and to further delineate the geometric dimensions of the subthalamic nucleus and their correlation with age, laterality, and sex. Healthy volunteers received axial, sagittal, and coronal T2_3D_DRIVE CLEAR, coronal T1-WI, coronal T2FLAIR, coronal T2, and coronal SWI sequence. The coronal T2-3D-DRIVE CLEAR images were compared with the Schaltenbrand-Wahren Atlas for Stereotaxy of the Human Brain for localizing the subthalamic nucleus. The best visualization plane with the largest sectional area and the most distinct outline was obtained and region of interest was delineated manually on the basis of the contours of the bilateral subthalamic nuclei in T2-WI images. T2-3D-DRIVE CLEAR in the coronal view showed optimal visualization of the subthalamic nucleus and indicated that the subthalamic nucleus showed three morphological types: the double convex lens type (172, 64%), the ram's horn type (62, 23%), and the willow leaf type (34, 13%). There were no statistically significant differences because of laterality, sex, and age in the sectional area, and maximal long and short diameter of the subthalamic nucleus. On the basis of our results, the current study has shown that T2-3D-DRIVE CLEAR in the coronal view provides optimal visualization of the subthalamic nucleus, which shows three distinct morphological types on MRI images, and there is no statistically significant difference in the geometric dimensions of the subthalamic nucleus because of laterality, sex, and age in normal individuals.