Cerebral Blood Flow and BOLD Changes in TBI using fMRI

描述(由申请人提供)：随着大量神经认知脑损伤文献的出现，功能磁共振成像作为理解脑损伤对人类认知和运动功能影响的工具的巨大潜力已经开始实现(McAllister等人，1999；2001，Christodoulou等人，2001)。虽然这些发现的一致性是令人鼓舞的，但关于脑外伤对脑激活模式的影响的结论的有效性将取决于更好地描述所观察到的脑激活模式的广泛变异性(Hillary，Steffener，Biswal等，2002)。我们建议的目的是系统地检查和量化导致创伤相关fMRI信号变化的血管和神经因素。据我们所知，这是第一次尝试全面检查生物物理、神经和认知对脑外伤相关功能磁共振激活差异的影响。我们在这里建议开发和利用的技术可以被其他研究人员实施，以准确地隔离由于创伤相关(或者实际上是任何与人群相关的)神经活动差异而引起的血流动力学变化。正因为如此，目前的提案提供了建立将BOLD功能磁共振应用于临床样本的新标准的机会。本项目旨在结合基础科学、工程学和计算问题来具体阐明导致脑损伤受试者与健康对照组相比大脑激活发生变化的机制(神经元与血管)。从非侵入性技术(FMRI)获得的结果将为测量一些相关的生理因素并对其进行生物物理表征以了解脑损伤的人脑功能提供方法。开发的方法和技术也可以用于在两个或更多不同的小组之间进行研究。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The enormous potential of fMRI as a tool for understanding the influences of TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) on cognitive and motor functioning in humans has begun to be realized as a body of neurocognitive TBI literature has started to emerge (McAllister et al., 1999; 2001, Christodoulou et al., 2001). While the consistency in these findings has been encouraging, the validity of conclusions regarding the influences of TBI on brain activation patterns measured by fMRI will be dependent upon better characterizing the wide variability in brain activation patterns observed (Hillary, Steffener, Biswal et al., 2002). The aim of our proposal is to systematically examine and quantify the vascular and neural factors contributing to trauma- related changes in the fMRI signal. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to comprehensively examine the biophysical, neural, and cognitive contributions to TBI-related differences in fMRI activation. The techniques we propose to develop and utilize here can be implemented by other investigators to accurately isolate hemodynamic changes due to trauma-related (or, indeed, any population-related) differences in neural activity. Because of this, the current proposal provides the opportunity to establish new standards for applying BOLD fMRI to clinical samples.. The present project intends to combine basic science, engineering, and computational issues to specifically elucidate mechanisms (neuronal vs vascular) that results in TBI subjects having altered brain activation in comparison to healthy controls. Results obtained from the noninvasive technique (fMRI) would provide ways to measure a number of relevant physiological factors and characterize them biophysically to understand human brain function with TBI. Methods and techniques developed can also be used to study between two or more different groups.