magnetic resonance imaging

Collaborative neuroimaging initiative BrainChart helps chart how brains change across the lifespan

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Source: Beth­le­hem et al (2020). A graph­i­cal sum­ma­ry of the nor­ma­tive tra­jec­to­ries of the medi­an (50th cen­tile) for each glob­al MRI phe­no­type, and key devel­op­men­tal mile­stones, as a func­tion of age (log-scaled).

For decades, growth charts have been used by pae­di­a­tri­cians as ref­er­ence tools. The charts allow health pro­fes­sion­als to plot and mea­sure a child’s height and weight from birth to young adult­hood. The per­centile scores they pro­vide, espe­cial­ly across mul­ti­ple vis­its, help doc­tors screen for con­di­tions such as obe­si­ty or inad­e­quate growth, which fall at the extremes of these scores.

Mean­while, it is pos­si­ble to mea­sure brain devel­op­ment with imag­ing tech­nolo­gies such as ultra­sound, mag­net­ic res­o­nance imag­ing (MRI) and com­put­erised tomog­ra­phy (CT). The devel­op­ment of these tech­nolo­gies has led to a wealth of research on how the brain changes, and each year, mil­lions of clin­i­cal brain scans are per­formed world­wide. Despite this progress, there are few mea­sures that are used to aid in mon­i­tor­ing brain devel­op­ment. Why? [Read more…] about Col­lab­o­ra­tive neu­roimag­ing ini­tia­tive Brain­Chart helps chart how brains change across the lifespan

New book highlights continued brain development throughout adolescence, even into our 20s

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– Dr. Sarah-Jane Blakemore

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Neu­ro­sci­en­tist Probes Myths About the Teenage Brain (Edu­ca­tion Week):

“We often think ear­ly child­hood is this dra­mat­ic win­dow of learn­ing and devel­op­ment in the brain, and you’re high­light­ing ado­les­cence as a dif­fer­ent kind of win­dow. Can you talk a lit­tle bit about that?
I was told when I was an under­grad­u­ate that the human brain pret­ty much stopped devel­op­ing after mid-child­hood. From [mag­net­ic res­o­nance imag­ing] of liv­ing brains, we’ve dis­cov­ered that that’s not true at all [Read more…] about New book high­lights con­tin­ued brain devel­op­ment through­out ado­les­cence, even into our 20s

Study combines MRI brain scans with statistics to better predict cognitive problems after stroke

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New ‘brain health index’ can pre­dict how well patients will do after stroke (Sci­enceDai­ly):

“A new com­put­er pro­gramme devel­oped by sci­en­tists at the Uni­ver­si­ties of Edin­burgh and Glas­gow can assess whole brain dete­ri­o­ra­tion and help pre­dict cog­ni­tive func­tion after stroke up to ten times more accu­rate­ly than cur­rent methods.

The new approach, pub­lished today in the Inter­na­tion­al Jour­nal of Stroke, can quan­ti­fy vis­i­ble brain injury from cere­bral small ves­sel dis­ease (SVD) and brain atro­phy by [Read more…] about Study com­bines MRI brain scans with sta­tis­tics to bet­ter pre­dict cog­ni­tive prob­lems after stroke

Study combines neuroimaging with machine learning to predict, with 96% accuracy, whether high-risk 6‑month-old babies will develop autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by age 2

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Researchers use brain imag­ing and machine learn­ing to pre­dict which high-risk infants will devel­op autism. Cred­it: Car­oli­na Insti­tute for Devel­op­men­tal Disabilities.

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A Sin­gle Brain Scan Has Been Used to Accu­rate­ly Pre­dict Autism at Just 6 Months Old (Sci­ence alert)

“Researchers have used brain scans and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to spot dif­fer­ences in how key areas of infant brains syn­chro­nise, allow­ing them to accu­rate­ly pre­dict which babies would devel­op autism spec­trum dis­or­der (ASD) as a toddler…The research, led by sci­en­tists from the Uni­ver­si­ty of North Car­oli­na at  Chapel Hill and Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty, comes hot on the heels of an ear­li­er study that used two scans tak­en at 6 and 12 months to make a sim­i­lar prediction.

Not only has this new method reduced the num­ber of scans required to make the [Read more…] about Study com­bines neu­roimag­ing with machine learn­ing to pre­dict, with 96% accu­ra­cy, whether high-risk 6‑month-old babies will devel­op autism spec­trum dis­or­der (ASD) by age 2

Study: Structural brain differences due to childhood poverty may account for 20% of the academic achievement gap

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Brain_MRI_children

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Brain scans reveal how pover­ty hurts chil­dren’s brains (Bloomberg):

“Grow­ing up poor has long been linked to low­er aca­d­e­m­ic test scores. And there’s now mount­ing evi­dence that it’s part­ly because kids can suf­fer real phys­i­cal con­se­quences from low fam­i­ly incomes, includ­ing brains that are less equipped to learn. [Read more…] about Study: Struc­tur­al brain dif­fer­ences due to child­hood pover­ty may account for 20% of the aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment gap

Study: MRI scan technicians can experience negative neurocognitive effects

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MRI work­ers expe­ri­ence tran­sient neu­rocog­ni­tive effects (News Medical):

“Indi­vid­u­als work­ing in the vicin­i­ty of mag­net­ic res­o­nance imag­ing (MRI) machines may expe­ri­ence tran­sient neu­rocog­ni­tive effects when mov­ing their heads, research demonstrates…Study par­tic­i­pants who com­plet­ed stan­dard­ized [Read more…] about Study: MRI scan tech­ni­cians can expe­ri­ence neg­a­tive neu­rocog­ni­tive effects