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Published:
Journal of Analytical Toxicology,
ISSN 0146-4760,
Volume 25, Number 5, July/August, pp. 414-418
Structural
MRI as a Tool for the Study of Neurotoxicity and Neurodegenerative Disorders
John
G. Csernansky
Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine,
660 S. Euclid Avenue and Metropolitan St. Louis Psychiatric Center, 5351 Delmar
Boulevard, St. Louis, Missouri
High-resolution
magnetic resonance (MR) imaging affords an unprecedented opportunity to study
the severity and distribution of neurodegenerative changes in the human brain.
By selecting specific MR sequence parameters (i.e., TE and TR), different MR
signals can be received from different tissue types, such as gray and white
matter. Through optimization of the contrast between different tissue types,
the surfaces and internal structures of brain structures of special interest
can be visualized and quantitated. Metrics such as two-dimensional areas, three-dimensional
volumes, and three-dimensional shape characteristics have proven to be highly
useful for quantitating the effects of toxins on the human brain. Among toxins,
the effects of alcohol on the human brain have been most intensively studied
using structural MR imaging. Volume losses in the cerebral cortex and other
brain regions of interest have been carefully quantitated. However, because
exposure to alcohol is almost always repeated over many years, the effects of
normal aging must be carefully considered when making comparisons between diseased
and healthy populations. In contrast to the literature on alcohol, structural
MR imaging has been relatively underutilized in the study of drugs and other
chemicals such as MPTP and other drugs of abuse that are toxic to special populations
of neurons. However, as the resolution of structural MR continues to improve,
the structural characteristics of such neuron populations will be visualized
and quantitated, and successful use of structural MR imaging for the study of
such toxins will become possible.
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