A new study fMRI aims to develop efficient real-time method for detecting the activation of the brain in AD patients -
Researchers at the University Hospitals Case Medical Center begin a functional magnetic resonance imaging study (fMRI) for detecting how the brain activation in patients at an early stage and intermediate of Alzheimer's disease compared to those without it.
When a part of the brain is activated by a task, the blood flows in this part of the brain. "FMRI is used to analyze brain activation patterns revealed through blood flow patterns that occur after administration of a stimulus, like showing someone a picture," said Curtis Tatsuoka, PhD , lead researcher of a new study which hopes to develop a faster, more accurate method in real time and more efficient for fMRI experiment. This is an important tool to study how the disease impacts brain function in Alzheimer's.
with the support of Philips healthcare, Dr. Tatsuoka and Alan Lerner, MD, director of the Center for brain health and memory at UH Case Medical Center, will study brain activation in using fMRI while participants perform research tasks such as solving math problems or remember names associated with people's faces.
"We expect that people with Alzheimer's disease have less brain activation, and less blood flowing to portions of their brains during the tasks compared to people without Alzheimer's disease to do the same tasks, "said said Dr. Lerner, who is co-principal investigator of the study and professor of neurology at the medical faculty of Case Western Reserve University. "We can use the images of blood flow as a measure of brain health or severity of the disease."
Dr. Tatsuoka, a biostatistician at the Department of Neurology at UH Case Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, said the detection of blood flow changes in fMRIs can be difficult because they can be hidden by many extraneous information, or "noise" in the image. To compensate for the noise, researchers have patients repeat tasks again and again for a predetermined number of times while undergoing imaging.
"It may take a lot of experimentation to detect the signal," said Dr. Tatsuoka. "You ask patients to repeat over and over a task, and you could get the same results every time, but after a while, they could also become tired or simply move their heads too often, which makes the flow models blood difficult to determine. "
" We hope to develop new experiences that can be analyzed in real time while the experiments are in progress and may change based on the responses of an individual. ideally, they would be shorter and more accurate experiments, "said Dr. Tatsuoka. "We do not want to understand someone test, and we do not want more testing someone."
With the help of the Philips engineers, it will test statistical models that can proactively detect changes in blood flow in the research participants. He predicts that the real-time analysis of the fMRI data will reduce brain scan time to 50 to 60 percent in healthy participants.
They also seek ways of measuring cognitive reserve. Cognitive reserve refers to the ability of the neuronal brain efficiency in activation while performing tasks, and ability to compensate for neuronal damage. Thus is related to the strength of brain disease. cognitive reserve can vary significantly between AD patients. "Some patients can have significant neuronal damage, while maintaining cognitive abilities, and it is interesting to see how it arises," said Dr. Tatsuoka.
"This pilot study has the potential to provide a way to quantify cognitive reserve and potentially provide neurologists with an additional tool to evaluate the stage of cognitive impairment, "said Dr. Lerner." Although there is no cure for Alzheimer ' Alzheimer, better and earlier diagnosis can help improve the quality of life of a patient. "
the UH study will include early stage research topics of Alzheimer's disease (AD) those with cognitive impairment mild, and healthy patients of the same age. Currently, Drs. Tatsuoka and Lerner and Philips engineers are running tests on MRI in the preparation of the study.
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