Associate Professor Samantha Holdsworth, Associate Professor Miriam Scadeng (HoD) and Dr Daniel Cornfeld (Honorary Fellow) from the Department of Anatomy and Medical Imaging were involved in a study that explores a specialised MRI technique called divided subtracted inversion recovery (dSIR), which detects subtle changes in the brain’s white matter in cases like traumatic brain injury or oxygen deprivation. The paper below validated changes against a standard reference.
Bydder M, Ali F, Condron P, Cornfeld D, Newburn G, Kwon E, Tayebi M, Scadeng M, Metzler T, Holdsworth S, Bydder G published a paper entitled, ‘Validation of an ultrahigh contrast divided subtracted inversion recovery technique using a standard T1 phantom’.
NMR in Biomedicine’. 2024;e5269. doi:10.1002/nbm.5269.
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This paper below, involving Associate Professor Samantha Holdsworth, and researchers from Stanford University and Mātai explores a 3D Quantitative Amplified MRI (3D q-aMRI) method developed by Stanford University and Mātai Medical Research Institute, a quick scan that quantifies tiny brain movements that are invisible on standard cardiac-gated structural MRI scans.
This builds on the amplified MRI technique that magnifies subtle brain movements caused by blood flow to the brain as the heart beats. This could lead to earlier and more accurate diagnoses of brain disorders.
Terem I, Younes K, Wang N, Condron P, Abderezaei J, Kumar H, Vossler H, Kwon E, Kurt M, Mormino E, Holdsworth S, Setsompop K published a paper entitled, ‘3D Quantitative-Amplified Magnetic Resonance Imaging (3D q-aMRI)’.
Bioengineering. 2024; 11(8):851.
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This study, involving Associate Professor Samantha Holdsworth, and led by Auckland Bioengineering Institute (ABI), was published in Scientific Reports – Nature and introduces a new metric using 4D flow MRI technology.
Each heartbeat sends a wave of blood through the brain’s vessels, causing them to expand and then relax—similar to feeling the pulse in your wrist. This pulsation ensures even distribution of oxygen and nutrients, vital for brain function. In healthy vessels, the pulse wave is dampened before it reaches the smallest vessels, where high pulsatility could be harmful.
This new metric provides a comprehensive measure of the small vessel pulsatility risk. This breakthrough is important as increased vascular pulsatility is associated with various brain conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.
Dempsey S, Safaei S, Holdsworth SJ, Maso Talou G published a paper entitled ‘Measuring global cerebrovascular pulsatility transmission using 4D flow MRI’.
Sci Rep. 2024;14:12604.
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