research
CREF promotes original and high-impact lines of research, based on physical methods, but with a strong interdisciplinary character and in relation to the main problems of the modern knowledge society.
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The CREF was born with a dual soul: a research centre and a historical museum. Its aim is to preserve and disseminate the memory of Enrico Fermi and to promote the dissemination and communication of scientific culture.
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Il CREF indice una selezione pubblica, per titoli e colloquio, per il conferimento di n. 1 assegno di...
Title: Spectroscopic Benchmarks by Machine Learning as Discriminant Analysis for Unconventional Italian...
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FISASMEM – Aging Physiology : developing quantitative MRI Methods
FISASMEM – Aging Physiology : developing quantitative MRI Methods
2021-2023 Regione Lazio POR-FESR A0375-2020-36648
Characterizing aging is important for social wellbeing and for understanding the devastating effects of some age-related neurological pathologies. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) is an investigative tool capable of capturing the deterioration of human brain network functionality associated with aging and neurodegeneration. However, fMRI is limited by the age-related variation in physiological noise, which is a confounding factor that is difficult to separate from the effect of neural origin. This project aims to address this scientific problem, which has important industrial implications in the health and biomedical industries, by characterizing the physiological origin of fMRI noise in ageing and in the early stages of neurodegeneration in terms of variations in vascular reactivity and micromovements, and by developing appropriate mitigation methods.
The project has been funded by the Lazio Region with POR FESR LAZIO 2014 – 2020 A0375-2020-36648, POR A0375E0085. (Funding €149.089,39)
Results
Brain aging is characterized by a deterioration in vascular function, particularly microvascular function, which is manifested by a decrease in cerebral blood flow (CBF), cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) and oxygen consumption rate (CMRO2). (CMRO2).
In this project, a protocol was developed to provide information on cerebrovascular reactivity with three different contrasts in a single 20-minute acquisition session. Cerebrovascular reactivity, which is a measure of the dilatory or constrictive response of cerebral blood vessels to vasoactive stimuli, is generally obtained using a single fMRI contrast, typically BOLD (blood oxygenation level dependent), which is not quantitative as it depends on physiological parameters specific to each subject and also on the intensity of the magnetic field, and therefore is not numerically comparable between acquisitions at different fields such as 1.5 T, 3 T and 7 T.
In the protocol developed, therefore, in addition to the BOLD sequence, two sequences have been incorporated and developed that are capable of providing quantitative parameters useful for obtaining a complete picture of CVR: ASL (arterial spin labeling), which depends on variations in CBF, and VASO (vascular space occupancy), which depends on variations in cerebral blood volume (CBV).
An example of a multi-contrast CVR obtained from the developed protocol is shown in the figure. This characterisation is particularly innovative as there are no other studies in the literature that map these three contrasts following a vasodilatory stimulus in a single session.
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