harrison Flashcards
Where is the nucleus contained?
Cell body
What do dendrites do?
Allow other cells to synapse on + communicate w/ the cell
What do axons do?
Conduct electrical signals and are surrounded by myelin
Myelin def + use in MRI
Fatty sheaths that help conduct the signal, major factor in determining MR signal + contrast (makes axon look v diff from cell body)
2 types of brain tissue n definitions:
- Grey matter - made up of densely connected cell bodies
- White matter - long axons surrounded by myelin live in the white matter
What comes under grey matter?
Subcortical nuclei - densely packed areas of cell bodies, but deeper into the brain.
These folds full of packed neurons differentiate human brain from those of animals’.
Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) def
- Fluid that bathes brain + lives in holes/pockets of middle of brain, goes all around spinal cord
- Is important in: shock absorption, bringing in nutrients, taking away waste products
Name the components involved in a MRI scan:
- Patient
- Patient table
- Scanner
- Magnet
- Gradient coils
- Radio frequency coil
What r u (in very simple terms) doing w/ a MRI scan?
Putting someone in a big magnet, creates magnetic field in the middle (B0 field - base magnetic field, always on)
How can u measure tissues based on a magnetic field?
U can do it bc some tissues have magnetic properties (e.g. hydrogen nucleus)
1. If you put someone in a strong magnetic field, those hydrogen ions tend to move in direction of that magnetic field (helpful if u want 2 read those signals)
2. Fatty parts (myelin, white matter) will have diff proportions of hydrogen ions than grey matter
Structural MRI def (mainly looking @ GM)
- Imaging gross or macro-scale brain anatomy (what u can see w/ naked eye)
- Basically measuring tissue types indirectly via magnetic properties
What is typical structural MRI resolution + can u change that?
Resolution is typically 1mm or less, can take finer details (go down to .2 or .3 mm) but takes longer for each scan
By changing magnetic sequence, can detect other features of tissue. Can change sequence to be susceptible to:
- Iron content (primarily) and myelin/white matter
- Bound or free water
- Could look @ vessel structure, contrast agent (injecting smth into someone’s brain 2 get better signal) might b useful here
Structural MRI analysis
Can segment different tissue types (WM, GM, CSF)
1. Look @ cortical thickness (measure thickness between outer and inner ribbon of cortex @ every point)
2. Look at local grey matter density
3. Could look @ sub-cortical shape n structure - whether or not its deformed inwards or outward according 2 some pathology or behaviour we’re looking at
Structural MRI analysis: sub-cortical shape n structure (examples)
- Bromis et al., 2018 - grey matter decreases w/ PTSD
- Akiki et al., 2017 - shape of hippocampus (memory formation n learning) changed w/ presence of PTSD
Structural MRI cons:
- Doesn’t measure tissue type directly
- Absolute values aren’t the same across scanners or sessions (bc measurements r relative)
- Measurement is done in mm - thousands of underlying cells per 3-dimensional pixel, vv broad
- Doesn’t always distinguish bone from air
- Contrast can b poor/variable in subcortical (deep) brain regions
- A single sequence does not show all pathologies
- Some noise present in the data, and maybe artefacts as well (e.g. if some1 doesn’t shut the door)
Complementary techniques 2 structural MRI:
- Computed tomography (CT)
- Histology
CT description
- Shows bone, membrane, vessels, + tumours
- MRI better for soft tissues
- Uses X-rays rather than magnetisation
- Lower spatial resolution than MRI (not as much fine detail)