Water exchange in the vasculature of the brain (WEX-BRAIN)

血脑屏障将血管与脑组织隔开。它允许对正常大脑功能至关重要的分子通过，但阻止其他潜在的有毒分子。如果血脑屏障功能不正常，这种有毒物质可能会进入大脑。血脑屏障功能异常与许多大脑疾病(如中风、痴呆症和多发性硬化症)有关，并被认为在这些疾病的发展中起着重要作用。能够测量血脑屏障功能很重要，因为这可能有助于诊断、开发治疗方法和监测治疗。不幸的是，目前还没有非侵入性和可靠的方法来做到这一点。在这个项目中，我们计划开发新的方法来测量血脑屏障的功能，方法是测量水通过它的难易程度。我们将开发新的高级磁共振成像(MRI)扫描和基于计算机的分析，以生成告诉我们血脑屏障渗漏程度的图像。我们将使用计算模拟和动物测量来测试这些测量。然后，我们将在一小群人类志愿者和患者中应用这些测量，以证明这些方法可以检测血脑屏障异常，并可以在临床环境中做到这一点。该项目的成果将是新的工具，使医生能够更有效地诊断和治疗患有脑部疾病的患者。

The blood-brain barrier separates blood vessels from brain tissue. It allows molecules critical to normal brain function to pass but blocks other, potentially toxic, molecules. Such toxic substances can pass into the brain when the blood-brain barrier if not functioning correctly. Abnormal blood-brain barrier function is associated with many brain conditions (for example, stroke, dementia and multiple sclerosis) and is thought to play an important role in the development of these conditions. It is important to be able to measure blood-brain barrier function as this may help with diagnosis, developing therapies and monitoring treatment. Unfortunately, currently there are no non-invasive and reliable methods to do this. Within this project we plan to develop new ways to measure blood-brain barrier function by measuring how easily water passes across it. We will develop new advanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanning and computer-based analysis to generate images that tell us how leaky the blood-brain barrier is. We will test these measurements using computational simulations and animal measurements. We will then apply these measurements in a small set of human volunteers and patients in order to demonstrate that these methods can detect blood brain barrier abnormalities and can do so in a clinical setting. The outcome of the project will be new tools to enable doctors to diagnose and treat patients with brain conditions more effectively.