The increasing incidence of neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases requires increasingly sophisticated tools for their diagnosis and monitoring. Clinical assessment takes advantage of objective parameters extracted by electroencephalogram and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) among others, to support clinical management of neurological diseases. The complementarity of these two tools can be now emphasized by the possibility of integrating the two technologies in a hybrid solution, allowing simultaneous acquisition of the two signals by the novel EEG-fMRI technology. This review will focus on simultaneous EEG-fMRI technology and related early studies, dealing about issues related to the acquisition and processing of simultaneous signals, and including critical discussion about clinical and technological perspectives.

Most recent research highlights how a specific form of causal understanding, namely technical reasoning, may support the increasing complexity of tools and techniques developed by humans over generations, i.e., the cumulative technological culture (CTC). Thus, investigating the neurocognitive foundations of technical reasoning is essential to comprehend the emergence of CTC in our lineage. Whereas functional neuroimaging evidence started to highlight the critical role of the area PF of the left inferior parietal cortex (IPC) in technical reasoning, no studies explored the links between the structural characteristics of such a brain region and technical reasoning skills. Therefore, in this study, we assessed participants’ technical-reasoning performance by using two ad-hoc psycho-technical tests; then, we extracted from participants’ 3 T T1-weighted magnetic-resonance brain images the cortical thickness (i.e., a volume-related measure which is associated with cognitive performance as reflecting the size, density, and arrangement of cells in a brain region) of all the IPC regions for both hemispheres. We found that the cortical thickness of the left area PF predicts participants’ technical-reasoning performance. Crucially, we reported no correlations between technical reasoning and the other IPC regions, possibly suggesting the specificity of the left area PF in generating technical knowledge. We discuss these findings from an evolutionary perspective, by speculating about how the evolution of parietal lobes may have supported the emergence of technical reasoning in our lineage.

Glial activation characterizes most neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases, often anticipating clinical manifestations and macroscopical brain alterations. Although imaging techniques have improved diagnostic accuracy in many neurological conditions, often supporting diagnosis, prognosis prediction and treatment outcome, very few molecular imaging probes, specifically focused on microglial and astrocytic activation, have been translated to a clinical setting. In this context, hybrid positron emission tomography (PET)/magnetic resonance (MR) scanners represent the most advanced tool for molecular imaging, combining the functional specificity of PET radiotracers (e.g., targeting metabolism, hypoxia, and inflammation) to both high-resolution and multiparametric information derived by MR in a single imaging acquisition session. This simultaneity of findings achievable by PET/MR, if useful for reciprocal technical adjustments regarding temporal and spatial cross-modal alignment/synchronization, opens still debated issues about its clinical value in neurological patients, possibly incompliant and highly variable from a clinical point of view. While several preclinical and clinical studies have investigated the sensitivity of PET tracers to track microglial (mainly TSPO ligands) and astrocytic (mainly MAOB ligands) activation, less studies have focused on MR specificity to this topic (e.g., through the assessment of diffusion properties and T2 relaxometry), and only few exploiting the integration of simultaneous hybrid acquisition. This review aims at summarizing and critically review the current state about PET and MR imaging for glial targets, as well as the potential added value of hybrid scanners for characterizing microglial and astrocytic activation.

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For decades, the main imaging tool for multiple myeloma (MM) patient’s management has been the conventional skeleton survey. In 2014 international myeloma working group defined the advantages of the whole-body low dose computed tomography (WBLDCT) as a gold standard, among imaging modalities, for bone disease assessment and subsequently implemented this technique in the MM diagnostic workflow. The aim of this study is to investigate, in a group of 30 patients with a new diagnosis of MM, the radiation dose (CT dose index, dose-length product, effective dose), the subjective image quality score and osseous/extra-osseous findings rate with a modified WBLDCT protocol. Spectral shaping and third-generation dual-source multidetector CT scanner was used for the assessment of osteolytic lesions due to MM, and the dose exposure was compared with the literature findings reported until 2020. Mean radiation dose parameters were reported as follows: CT dose index 0.3 ± 0.1 mGy, Dose-Length Product 52.0 ± 22.5 mGy*cm, effective dose 0.44 ± 0.19 mSv. Subjective image quality was good/excellent in all subjects. 11/30 patients showed osteolytic lesions, with a percentage of extra-osseous findings detected in 9/30 patients. Our data confirmed the advantages of WBLDCT in the diagnosis of patients with MM, reporting an effective dose for our protocol as the lowest among previous literature findings.

Incarcerated inguinal hernia is a common diagnosis in patients presenting a painful and nonreducible groin mass. Although the diagnosis is usually made by physical examination, the content of the hernia sac and the extent of the surgical operation may vary and can require multimodal imaging integration (e.g., ultrasonography, computed tomography); the usual finding is a segment of small bowel and, less commonly, large bowel. We present an extremely rare case of a sigmoid cancer incarcerated in a left inguinal hernia and infiltrating the spermatic cord. The patient underwent whole-body computed tomography (CT) with contrast agent injection for staging, followed by a left hemicolectomy paralleled by a unilateral orchiectomy.

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Interoception, the ability to perceive inner body sensations, has been demonstrated to be different among genders, with a stronger female attention toward interoceptive information. No study correlated this capability with brain differences between males and females. This study aims to detect behavioral variances and structural neuroimaging interoception correlates in a sample of healthy volunteers matched for age. Seventy-three participants (37 females, mean age 43.5; 36 males, mean age 37.4) completed the Self-Awareness Questionnaire (SAQ) for interoceptive sensibility and underwent a structural MRI session. A t test corrected for Bonferroni multiple comparisons was performed to compare brain morphological parameters (cortical thickness and parcel volume) in both groups. A multivariate analysis of variance was performed to assess the effect of gender on scores obtained on the SAQ. A moderation model through multiple linear regression analysis was performed between gray matter volumes or parcels, cortical thickness, and the interoception score. Group analysis showed significant differences in morphometric brain data between males and females, both for cortical and subcortical volumes, but not for cortical thickness analyses. MANOVA underlined a significant difference in SAQ scores between males and females with higher values for the second ones. Moreover, a significant correlation between the interoception scores and gray matter volumes of the two groups has been detected, with a sharp prevalence for the female gender in the left insula with F1, F2, and SAQ interoception scores (R2 = 0.41, p < 0.001). Our results demonstrated that in the female group, a stronger predisposition was found toward interoceptive sensations, and that multiple brain areas were correlated with interoceptive measure. These data sustain a female advantage in the attention toward this process and support the idea that interoception in females is a process more shared across several regions that participate in creating the sense of self.