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In a major advance for detecting brain pathologies, Einstein scientists led by Michael Lipton, M.D., Ph.D., and Asif Suri, M.D., Ph.D., report in the November 18 issue of PLoS ONE that they have improved the accuracy of a cutting-edge imaging technology. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is much more sensitive in detecting brain abnormalities than standard magnetic resonance imaging. But obtaining useful DTI information requires quantifying the information in each of the thousands of minute three-dimensional elements (voxels) composing the brain image and then comparing that information with DTI scans of a group of normal brains. To ensure that comparisons involve voxels in the same brain location, DTI images for the patient and control brains must then be “registered” to fit the size and shape of a template brain (typically selected from a brain atlas). Misregistration of the patient’s brain to the template brain can cause major errors in accuracy, so the scientists devised a new approach using the patient’s brain as the registration template. Compared with the standard technique, the new approach significantly reduced rates of both false-positive and false-negative diagnoses in a group of 20 patients with mild traumatic brain injuries. Dr. Lipton was paper’s senior author. He is professor of radiology and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, associate professor of neuroscience, and associate director of the Gruss Magnetic Resonance Research Center (Gruss MRRC). Dr. Suri was the paper’s lead author and completed this work while a NY State Psychiatry Neuroimaging Research Fellow working in the Gruss MRRC. Both researchers are neuroradiologists in radiology at Montefiore, where Dr. Lipton is also medical director for MRI Services.
Posted on: Wednesday, December 09, 2015