Events Calendar

Ming Hsieh Institute Medical Imaging Seminar Series

Speaker: Xingfeng Shao, Electrical Computer and Engineering, University of Southern California

Talk Title: Mapping Water Exchange Rate Across the Blood-Brain Barrier

Abstract: The blood-brain barrier maintains the homeostasis within the brain and the dysfunction of blood-brain barrier has been linked to multiple central nervous system diseases and psychiatric disorders. The purpose of this work is to present a novel MR pulse sequence and regularized modeling algorithm to quantify the water exchange rate, kw, across the blood-brain barrier without contrast, and to evaluate its clinical utility in a cohort of elderly subjects at risk of cerebral small vessel disease. Elderly subjects were recruited and underwent two MRIs to evaluate the reproducibility of the proposed technique. Correlation analysis was performed between kw and vascular risk factors, Clinical Dementia Rating scale, neurocognitive assessments, and white matter hyperintensities. kw was significantly higher in subjects with diabetes and hypercholesterolemia. Significant correlations between kw and vascular risk factors, Clinical Dementia Rating scale, executive/memory function, and the Fazekas scale of white matter hyperintensities were also observed. These results suggest that kw may serve as a surrogate imaging marker of cerebral small vessel disease and associated cognitive impairment.

Biography: Xingfeng Shao is a Ph.D. candidate in Dr. Danny JJ Wang's lab in USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (INI). He obtained his Bachelor degree in Engineering Physics at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, and joined USC BME department as a Ph.D. student in 2016. His research focus on MRI pulse sequence development. With background in physics and neurobiology, he has developed several MRI sequences for arterial spin labeling (ASL) and proposed a novel technique to measure water permeability across the blood-brain barrier in-vivo.

Host: Professor Krishna Nayak

Location: Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience (MCB) - 101

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Talyia White