MRI characterization of rat brain aging at structural and functional level: Clues for translational applications

Bontempi, Pietro; Podda, Rachele; Daducci, Alessandro; Sonato, Nicolò; Fattoretti, Patrizia; Fiorini, Silvia; Tambalo, Stefano; Mosconi, Elisa; Merigo, Flavia; Balietti, Marta; Marzola, Pasquina

doi:10.1016/j.exger.2021.111432

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…However, we believe that this important parameter affects the accuracy of the measurement ( Boyko et al, 2019b ; Kuts et al, 2019a ) and therefore was used in our protocol. It should also be mentioned that this parameter is influenced by many factors, including the size of the brain ( Yushmanov et al, 2002 ; Purushotham et al, 2015 ), brain region ( Yuan et al, 2017 ), model of the disease under study ( Bardutzky et al, 2005 ; Albrecht et al, 2019 ) and age-related trends in the rat ( Bardutzky et al, 2005 ; Bontempi et al, 2021 ). We used the recommended optimal threshold parameters for correction of ADC maps ( Benveniste et al, 1992 ; Yushmanov et al, 2002 ; Meng et al, 2004 ; Bra et al, 2009 ), which have been tested in rat ischemia models ( Boyko et al, 2019b ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Novel Histological Technique to Assess Severity of Traumatic Brain Injury in Rodents: Comparisons to Neuroimaging and Neurological Outcomes

et al. 2021

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Here we evaluate an alternative protocol to histologically examine blood-brain barrier (BBB) breakdown, brain edema, and lesion volume following traumatic brain injury (TBI) in the same set of rodent brain samples. We further compare this novel histological technique to measurements determined by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and a neurological severity score (NSS). Sixty-six rats were randomly assigned to a sham-operated, mild TBI, moderate TBI, or severe TBI group. 48 h after TBI, NSS, MRI and histological techniques were performed to measure TBI severity outcome. Both the histological and MRI techniques were able to detect measurements of severity outcome, but histologically determined outcomes were more sensitive. The two most sensitive techniques for determining the degree of injury following TBI were NSS and histologically determined BBB breakdown. Our results demonstrate that BBB breakdown, brain edema, and lesion volume following TBI can be accurately measured by histological evaluation of the same set of brain samples.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Novel Histological Technique to Assess Severity of Traumatic Brain Injury in Rodents: Comparisons to Neuroimaging and Neurological Outcomes

et al. 2021

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“…RsfMRI data were first corrected for susceptibility‐induced distortions with topup using the reversed phase‐encode blips images. The preprocessing was then carried out similarly to our previous work 26,27 . Briefly, the preprocessing was run with the MELODIC tool of FSL and consisted of motion correction, slice timing correction, and spatial smoothing with a full width at half maximum of 5.0 mm.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The preprocessing was then carried out similarly to our previous work. 26,27 Briefly, the preprocessing was run with the MELODIC tool of FSL and consisted of motion correction, slice timing correction, and spatial smoothing with a full width at half maximum of 5.0 mm. Functional data were then analyzed with independent component analysis (ICA) and the resulting components were manually labeled as true signal or noise in 14 subjects (seven CTR and seven EAE) randomly chosen in our dataset-artifact signals, 28,29 to identify the RSNs in the functional data and to regress out the noise from the full dataset (84 MRI acquisitions).…”

Section: Mr Image Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resting‐state functional magnetic resonance imaging reveals functional connectivity alteration in the experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis model of multiple sclerosis

Bontempi,

Piccolantonio,

Busato

et al. 2024

NMR in Biomedicine

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Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune degenerative disease targeting white matter in the central nervous system. The most common animal model that mimics MS is experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) and it plays a crucial role in pharmacological research, from the identification of a therapeutic target to the in vivo validation of efficacy. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is largely used to detect MS lesions, and resting‐state functional MRI (rsfMRI) to investigate alterations in the brain functional connectivity (FC). MRI was mainly used in EAE studies to detect lesions in the spinal cord and brain. The current longitudinal MRI study aims to validate rsfMRI as a biomarker of the disease progression in the myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein 35–55 induced EAE animal model of MS. MR images were acquired 14, 25, and 50 days postimmunization. Seed‐based analysis was used to investigate the whole‐brain FC with some predefined areas, such as the thalamic regions, cerebellum, motor and somatosensory cortex. When compared with the control group, the EAE group exhibited a slightly altered FC and a decreasing trend in the total number of activated voxels along the disease progression. The most interesting result regards the whole‐brain FC with the cerebellum. A hyperconnectivity behavior was found at an early phase and a significant reduced connectivity at a late phase. Moreover, we found a negative correlation between the total number of activated voxels during the late phase and the cumulative disease index. The results obtained provide a clinically relevant experimental platform that may be pivotal for the elucidation of the key mechanisms of accumulation of irreversible disability, as well as the development of innovative therapies for MS. Moreover, the negative correlation between the disease severity and the size of the activated area suggests a possible research pathway to follow for the resolution of the clinico‐radiological paradox.

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MRI characterization of rat brain aging at structural and functional level: Clues for translational applications

Cited by 2 publications

References 64 publications

A Novel Histological Technique to Assess Severity of Traumatic Brain Injury in Rodents: Comparisons to Neuroimaging and Neurological Outcomes

A Novel Histological Technique to Assess Severity of Traumatic Brain Injury in Rodents: Comparisons to Neuroimaging and Neurological Outcomes

Resting‐state functional magnetic resonance imaging reveals functional connectivity alteration in the experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis model of multiple sclerosis

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